ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – Earlier this week, a Virginia legislative branch agency was hit with a ransomware attack. These are becoming more common, hitting everything from the government to the Colonial Pipeline. WDBJ7 spoke with local experts on ways you can protect yourself and your workplace as cybercriminals are getting smarter and richer. “In 2020 there was almost a trillion dollars in losses. That’s up from 500 billion in 2018. The average disruption takes a business offline for 18 hours. These aren’t always successful in getting paid, but they’re almost always successful in disrupting a business,” explained Eric Thompson, a Director with Advanced Logic Industries. “The average disruption per business…