The City of New Orleans ransomware attack has caused at least $7 million in financial damage to date, Mayor Latoya Cantrell told WVUE. In addition, Cantrell said she expects the ransomware attack's financial impact to continue to grow — despite the fact that the city has recovered $3 million via a cyber insurance policy that was purchased before the incident.Meanwhile, the City of New Orleans still faces an IT backlog after the ransomware attack, Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano told WVUE. Montano also indicated that it could take several months before the city rebuilds its network.Perform regular IT security audits and penetration testing. Deploy endpoint protection solutions across IT environments. Develop and implement a cybersecurity training program to teach employees about ransomware and other cyber threats. Sign up immediately for U.S. Department of Homeland Security Alerts, which are issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Some of the alerts specifically mention MSPs, CSPs, telcos and other types of service providers. Study the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to understand how to mitigate risk within your own business before moving on to mitigate risk across your customer base. Explore cybersecurity awareness training for your business and your end-customers to drive down cyberattack hit rates. Connect the dots between your cybersecurity and data protection vendors. Understand how their offerings can be integrated and aligned to (A) prevent attacks, (B) mitigate attacks and (C) recover data if an attack circumvents your cyber defenses. Continue to attend channel-related conferences, but extend to attend major cybersecurity events — particularly RSA Conference, Black Hat and Amazon AWS re:Inforce. (PS: Also, keep your eyes open for PerchyCon 2020 in January.)