Three school districts have been hit by ransomware in North Louisiana this week.

The ransomware infections took place this week and have impacted the school districts of three North Louisiana parishes -- Sabine, Morehouse, and Ouachita.

State ransomware infections are reported on more often than those which affect small businesses. Yet small business owners are often oblivious to the threats. Companies all need to be cost-conscious but many of them are applying this philosophy to their IT systems.

These companies do not realize that small business breaches cost a whopping 2.5 million dollars as we recently reported.

Back to Louisiana, They are in a state of emergency declared by the the Governor.

The schools and state systems have been affected.

Here is the second part of the emergency declaration.

This is not an isolated incident. States are very vulnerable to hackers and ransomware. So are schools. We recently reported about the poor state of election cybersecurity in various states as well as a ransomware attack at Monroe College. We have also reported the city of Baltimore and numerous cities in Florida were hit with attacks costing many millions.

Mayors have vowed not to pay hackers a ransom but shortly after many of them agreed to do this - as we predicted, there was another attack. La Porte County, Indiana got hit with Ryuk ransomware and their website and email went down.

Businesses are in the same risk category. Almost 25% of them were hit with some sort of attack in the last 90 days as we recently reported.

In addition, there has been a recent government warning to U.S. businesses that Iranian hackers are targeting them.

Statistically speaking, virtually all businesses are likely to be hit with some sort of cyber attack. After being hit, companies tend to take the problem more seriously and design their systems and procedures to be more secure.

The problem is - oftem companies can be shut down by major attacks. We have seen it happen - sadly.

Attackers are constantly breaching the internet and users they find in breached databases to target them and your company. They use marketing automation and targeting technology to find likely victims.

Yet most buisiness owners and managers hope they won't be affected.

Sadly, it is not that simple.

We have put together cybersecurity essentials – a simple list which will help most organizations become far more secure.

We are happy to come onsite, evaluate your cybersecurity risk and make recommendations. Even if you have a current IT solution, it is always a good idea to get a second opinion. The alternative could be a costly or catastrophic shutdown.