How to Mitigate Ransomware

How to Mitigate Ransomware for Business

Ransomware is a form of malicious software that infects the state of the computer to restrict users’ account with access until a ransom is paid to unlock it. Ransomware criminals have been monitored for several years and often attempt to extort a sum of money and put pressure on the victim by displaying an on-screen alert. The threat of ransomware over the past few years is a non-stop growing threat that has quickly risen to become a very profitable criminal operation. Many businesses that have been impacted by ransomware or were held hostage by ransomware, and they often believe that they must give in to the demands of ransom, and that by paying this ransom is the most cost-effective way for restoration of data to the business. Unfortunately, when a business has been attacked by ransomware, and they pay this money in order to the ransom, they are directly impacting the funding of the next generation of a cyber threat. Being involved in this constant vicious cycle evolves more sophisticated targeted cyber-attacks. With the popularity of ransomware, this is a way for hackers to receive more money and allows a way for hackers to demand more money in the long run for similar endeavors against businesses.

What is Ransomware?

There are different types of ransomware and it is critical for an organization to educate their employees about how threats like ransomware can be detrimental to a business. The forms of ransomware are types of malicious software that infects the state of the computer to restrict users’ account with access until a ransom (sum of money) is paid for the software to unlock. In most cases, there is a deadline for the victim to pay the sum of money or they risk losing their account with access. Ransomware holds a company or personal information hostage, restricting the user from access to documents, financial information, and photos. Although these files are still on the computer, the ability for the malware to encrypt the device makes all data stored on the computer inaccessible. Ransomware initially targeted individuals, but with the evolution of ransomware cyber attacks, these cyber criminals have started to target in addition to larger groups such as businesses, as they knew they could start to receive larger sums of money. Being a victim of ransomware can be easy for anyone to become, but to be able to defend against ransomware is the pair of keys to having that piece of mind for your business.

How to Prevent Ransomware:

Read on to find out how you can protect your organization against ransomware as we discuss tips on how to prevent ransomware attacks. To protect your business from ransomware, and the best defence against ransomware is to use security software, meaning that the business should install and use a trusted security suite that offers more than just antivirus features. It is also vital to keep this security software up to date, as new ransomware alternatives will continue to appear, by updating, this will help to protect against ransomware and cyberattacks. It is critical for an organization to educate their employees about how threats like ransomware are very serious, therefore, they need to ensure that employees are not automatically opening email attachments this is one of the easiest methods for cyber criminals to deliver ransomware. These emails are disguised in very clever phishing emails to trick employees into clicking legitimate looking links in an email that contain a malicious code. Once someone has opened this, it gives the ability for malware to prevent you from accessing data and holds the data hostage until ransom is paid. It is also a very good idea for a business to have backups of those systems of important data to an external hard drive, this enables the cyber criminal to lose some advantage as the business has not entirely lost all their data. Once the infection by ransomware has been cleared, the victim can easily regain their files as they had data from a backup prior to ransomware. Lastly, cloud services are extremely useful when it comes to mitigating a ransomware infection, as many cloud services do retain previous versions of files.

Best Practices:

As stated, it is important to know who is a target for ransomware, as no business or user is too large or small for ransomware. As ransomware continues to evolve, so should IT system administrators. Employees should be made very aware of the repercussions of a ransomware attack and need to be educated on what and what not to do.

1. Regularly make backups of those systems your business uses
2. Keep your programs and operating systems updated
3. Securely use system modules and administration tools
4. Protect the network and servers
5. Secure your gateways for digital snoopers to not be able to have access
6. Implement behaviour monitoring

Popular Types of Ransomware:

• Crypto Ransomware: This puts risk on your computers and data from ransomware such as cryptolocker. Cryptolocker was one of the first examples of ransomware which encrypted user’s data with a randomly generated symmetric key for each file. Once all files have been encrypted separately, the ransomware displays a ransom message demanding a sum of money

• Locker Ransomware: Reveton ransomware has the ability to lock users’ computers by preventing them from logging on and displayed an official looking message as if it had come from the FBI or police force. Normally the message would display that the user had been involved in an illegal activity and the only way to regain access to the computer is by paying a ‘fine’

• Mac Ransomware: KeRanger was one of the first pieces of ransomware to successfully infect a mac computer. This would encrypt many different file types on the computer which demanded bitcoin from the user and gave instructions for how to pay the sum of money. The ransomware author normally would offer to decrypt one file for free to prove that they have the ability to decrypt the other user files.

It is very important for individuals and businesses to take the correct measures when it comes to protecting themselves from ransomware. It is also crucial for a business to know the repercussions of being attacked, as they simultaneously feeding into the cyber criminal activity. When a business has been attacked by ransomware, and they pay this money in order to the ransom, they are directly impacting the funding of the next generation of a cyber threat. Being involved in this constant vicious cycle evolves more sophisticated targeted cyber-attacks. With the popularity of ransomware, this is a way for hackers to receive more money and allows a way for hackers to demand more money in the long run for similar endeavours against businesses. With businesses not getting the correct protection that they need; they are feeding the hungry cyber criminals and are putting a lot on the line.

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