Addison Ransomware Defense and Recovery Consulting

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for cybercriminals and rogue states, representing a potentially existential risk to businesses that are successfully attacked. Current strains of crypto-ransomware target everything, including online backup, making even partial restoration a challenging and costly process. New versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Snatch and Egregor have emerged, displacing WannaCry, Spora, and CryptoWall in notoriety, elaborateness, and destructive impact.

90% of crypto-ransomware infections are the result of innocent-seeming emails that have malicious links or file attachments, and many are "zero-day" attacks that can escape detection by traditional signature-based antivirus filters. While user education and up-front identification are critical to protect your network against ransomware, leading practices dictate that you take for granted some attacks will inevitably get through and that you put in place a solid backup solution that allows you to restore files and services quickly with minimal losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Assessment is an ultra-affordable service centered around an online discussion with a Progent cybersecurity consultant skilled in ransomware defense and repair. In the course of this assessment Progent will cooperate directly with your Addison IT managers to collect critical information about your security setup and backup environment. Progent will utilize this information to create a Basic Security and Best Practices Report detailing how to adhere to best practices for configuring and managing your cybersecurity and backup systems to block or clean up after a ransomware assault.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment focuses on vital areas related to crypto-ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The review addresses:

Security

• Correct allocation and use of administration accounts
• Assigning NTFS and SMB permissions
• Proper firewall settings
• Safe Remote Desktop Protocol configuration
• Advice about AntiVirus tools identification and deployment

• Split permission architecture for backup protection
• Backing up critical servers including Active Directory
• Offsite backups with cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a variety of malware that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they cannot be used or are publicized. Crypto-ransomware sometimes locks the victim's computer. To prevent the damage, the victim is asked to send a certain amount of money, typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief period of time. There is no guarantee that delivering the extortion price will restore the lost data or avoid its publication. Files can be altered or deleted across a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot solve the strong encryption technologies used on the compromised files. A common ransomware attack vector is spoofed email, whereby the target is tricked into responding to by a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This makes the email to appear to come from a familiar source. Another common attack vector is a poorly secured RDP port.

CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the damage caused by the many strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every two years. Notorious examples are WannaCry, and Petya. Current high-profile variants like Ryuk, DoppelPaymer and TeslaCrypt are more sophisticated and have wreaked more damage than older versions. Even if your backup processes enable you to restore your ransomed data, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where stolen data are made public. Because new versions of ransomware are launched every day, there is no certainty that conventional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect the latest attack. If threat does appear in an email, it is important that your users have been taught to be aware of social engineering techniques. Your last line of defense is a sound process for scheduling and keeping remote backups plus the deployment of reliable recovery platforms.

Contact Progent About the ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Susceptibility Audit in Addison
For pricing information and to find out more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Testing can bolster your protection against ransomware in Addison, call Progent at 800-462-8800 or see Contact Progent.