How a Business Can Protect Itself From Ransomware Threats?

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that there will be $ 6 trillion in annual damage from cybercrime by 2021. That's double the $ 3 trillion in 2015. Cybercrime losses include data corruption and destruction, theft of intellectual property, business disruption following an attack, and damage to a company's reputation.

According to statistics, the damage from ransomware viruses, or ransomware, as well as from cybercrime in general, is growing every year. The healthcare industry is most often attacked because of the high sensitivity of clients' medical data. Also, ransomware remains the main threat in the retail, gaming, and crypto industries. However, any company, regardless of industry, is prone to ransomware outbreaks.

At the same time, financial losses from ransomware are only part of the damage. Downtime, operational disruptions, damage to the reputation of the company, and sometimes to its customers, all have disastrous consequences for the business.

Cybercriminals Bet on Ransomware

Ransomware is a big business. The number of cyberattacks has increased dramatically over the past few years. Nearly two-thirds of organizations surveyed in North America and Western Europe were attacked by ransomware in the past year, according to an ESG study. At the same time, 22% of respondents reported weekly attacks.

When malware encrypts files and cannot access them, there is little that can be done. All that remains is either to pay the extortionists or, if there are no virus-free backups left, accept the loss and start restoring the damage.

Unfortunately, in most cases, data that has been encrypted by a virus for ransom will still be considered too risky to use. They may be compromised or remain inaccessible, regardless of whether the ransom is paid.

How to Protect Company Data?

Regular attacks and high-profile epidemics have forced companies to increase investments in their cybersecurity. The fight against ransomware viruses should be comprehensive and should be conducted in three directions:

• Preventing or mitigating an attack
• Data protection and backup
• Recovery

Experience has shown that even large, trained organizations are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This increases the relevance of backup and recovery technologies. However, only comprehensive measures will provide reliable protection.

1) Staff Training

Ransomware often infiltrates corporate systems from individual employee devices that are connected to the company's network. Therefore, even training in simple cybersecurity measures - limiting the use of USB ports, Wi-Fi networks - can help a business prevent these threats.

IT training is just as important as end-user training. And given the proximity of administrators to the IT infrastructure, their training becomes critical to the company's cybersecurity. Particular attention should be paid to training those specialists who are responsible for backing up data.

Regular training on security, networking, and storage guidelines will increase the barrier against ransomware and prevent damage from infection.

However, for many businesses, it is too expensive to train their own security professionals. A non-core function for a company, such as information security management, is often trusted by specialized service providers who guarantee protection through their expertise.

2) Restricting Administrative Access

Many organizations allow too many employees to have sysadmin access. Those who have administrative access should be regularly checked and tracked to what data it applies. Setting the correct access permissions for employees and checking them regularly will help reduce the risks of ransomware infections.

3) Data Backup According to the "3-2-1" Rule

The 3-2-1 data storage scheme requires that three copies of company data be stored on two different media, and one of these copies must be located outside the office, without a direct connection to the Internet or corporate network.

An offline copy is the so-called last line of defense, a backup that can be used for recovery because the ransomware will probably not reach it even when the rest of the system is damaged.

Using a different file system for backup and solutions with behavioral analysis capabilities can also help limit the spread of ransomware.

4) Protection of Devices Receiving Malware

Email protection and web control are critical elements in the fight against ransomware. Measures were taken as below:

• File type whitelisting
• Blacklists of suspicious websites
• Installation of complete security
• Regular and timely software updates
• Scan for known ransomware or malware in emails
• Tools for identifying and blocking phishing emails
• Scanning websites for malicious downloads and browser exploits
• Prohibition of sending by e-mail without analyzing the reputation of executable files (.Exe, .Ppt, .Doc, .Docx)

These and other methods of protection will limit the potential of the ransomware. Intrusion testing and bogus phishing by a third-party cybersecurity partner will also help.

Endpoints (PCs, laptops, smartphones) often become an attack vector for the introduction of ransomware and therefore require a set of reliable countermeasures. This requires behavioral monitoring with dynamic analysis using sandboxing to detect encryption, disk connections, and more.

Intrusion Detection Systems (HIDS / HIPS) are another effective security measure that focuses on identifying exploits within the network to prevent malicious traffic from reaching servers.

How to Get Reliable Protection From Ransomware Without Taking Complicated Measures!

Some of these protections are available to many companies, but complex efforts are nearly impossible for small businesses. It is believed that small businesses are less susceptible to cyber ransomware attacks. However, this is a delusion.

Ransomware can infect any type of business. The large scale and automated nature of ransomware attacks make them profitable at the cost of a large number of victims, rather than requiring large sums. Therefore, the likelihood of contamination of the infrastructure of small companies increases.

Providers that provide IT infrastructure in the cloud can help small businesses. They monitor the entire system and reliably protect it from ransomware using advanced comprehensive cybersecurity measures that are inappropriate for small companies to use on their own. What small businesses are not able to do on their own within the framework of cyber protection, they receive from cloud providers.