Albany Ransomware Prevention and Recovery Solutions

Ransomware has been weaponized by cybercriminals and malicious governments, posing a potentially lethal risk to businesses that are victimized. Modern strains of ransomware target all vulnerable resources, including backup, making even partial restoration a complex and costly process. New variations of crypto-ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Conti and Egregor have emerged, displacing Locky, TeslaCrypt, and CryptoWall in prominence, elaborateness, and destructiveness.

Most ransomware penetrations are the result of innocent-seeming emails that have dangerous links or file attachments, and a high percentage are "zero-day" variants that elude the defenses of legacy signature-based antivirus filters. Although user education and up-front identification are important to protect your network against ransomware attacks, best practices dictate that you take for granted some attacks will eventually succeed and that you deploy a solid backup solution that allows you to repair the damage rapidly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is a low-cost service centered around a remote interview with a Progent cybersecurity consultant skilled in ransomware protection and repair. During this assessment Progent will collaborate directly with your Albany network managers to gather pertinent information about your cybersecurity posture and backup processes. Progent will utilize this data to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment detailing how to follow best practices for configuring and managing your cybersecurity and backup systems to prevent or recover from a ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment focuses on key issues related to crypto-ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review covers:

Security

• Proper use of admin accounts
• Appropriate NTFS and SMB (Server Message Block) authorizations
• Proper firewall setup
• Safe RDP access
• Advice about AntiVirus (AV) filtering selection and deployment

• Split permission model for backup protection
• Protecting required servers including Active Directory
• Geographically dispersed backups with cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts or steals files so they cannot be used or are publicized. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To avoid the carnage, the target is required to send a certain amount of money (the ransom), typically in the form of a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a short period of time. It is not guaranteed that delivering the extortion price will restore the lost files or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be altered or erased across a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot solve the military-grade encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A common ransomware attack vector is booby-trapped email, in which the target is tricked into interacting with by means of a social engineering technique called spear phishing. This causes the email to look as though it came from a familiar sender. Another popular attack vector is an improperly protected Remote Desktop Protocol port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses attributed to by the many strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every other year. Notorious examples include WannaCry, and NotPetya. Recent high-profile threats like Ryuk, Maze and Spora are more elaborate and have wreaked more damage than older versions. Even if your backup/recovery processes allow your business to restore your ransomed data, you can still be hurt by so-called exfiltration, where stolen data are exposed to the public (known as "doxxing"). Because new versions of ransomware crop up daily, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-matching anti-virus tools will detect the latest attack. If an attack does appear in an email, it is important that your users have learned to be aware of social engineering techniques. Your ultimate defense is a solid scheme for performing and keeping remote backups and the use of dependable recovery tools.

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