Albuquerque Ransomware Prevention and Remediation Consulting

Ransomware has been widely adopted by cyber extortionists and rogue governments, representing a possibly existential threat to businesses that are victimized. Current variations of ransomware target everything, including backup, making even selective recovery a challenging and expensive exercise. Novel variations of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Conti and Egregor have made the headlines, displacing WannaCry, TeslaCrypt, and CryptoWall in prominence, sophistication, and destructiveness.

90% of ransomware penetrations come from innocuous-looking emails with malicious links or attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" attacks that can escape the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus tools. While user education and frontline identification are critical to protect against ransomware, best practices demand that you expect that some malware will eventually succeed and that you put in place a solid backup solution that permits you to recover quickly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Assessment is a low-cost service built around a remote discussion with a Progent security expert experienced in ransomware defense and repair. During this interview Progent will collaborate with your Albuquerque network managers to collect pertinent information about your security profile and backup environment. Progent will utilize this information to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment documenting how to apply best practices for implementing and administering your cybersecurity and backup systems to prevent or recover from a ransomware assault.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment highlights key areas associated with crypto-ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review covers:

Security

• Effective use of admin accounts
• Correct NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) permissions
• Proper firewall configuration
• Secure RDP connections
• Recommend AntiVirus tools selection and configuration

• Split permission architecture for backup protection
• Protecting key servers such as AD
• Geographically dispersed backups with cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts or deletes files so they are unusable or are made publicly available. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To avoid the damage, the target is asked to pay a certain amount of money (the ransom), typically in the form of a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a brief time window. It is not guaranteed that delivering the ransom will restore the damaged files or avoid its publication. Files can be encrypted or deleted throughout a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the strong encryption algorithms used on the compromised files. A typical ransomware attack vector is spoofed email, whereby the target is tricked into responding to by means of a social engineering technique called spear phishing. This causes the email to appear to come from a familiar source. Another popular vulnerability is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.

CryptoLocker opened the new age of ransomware in 2013, and the damage caused by the many strains of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every two years. Famous attacks are WannaCry, and Petya. Recent high-profile threats like Ryuk, DoppelPaymer and Spora are more sophisticated and have wreaked more havoc than older strains. Even if your backup/recovery procedures permit your business to restore your encrypted files, you can still be threatened by exfiltration, where stolen documents are made public. Because additional variants of ransomware crop up daily, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-based anti-virus filters will block a new malware. If threat does show up in an email, it is critical that your end users have been taught to identify phishing techniques. Your last line of protection is a sound process for scheduling and retaining remote backups and the use of reliable recovery platforms.

Contact Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Evaluation in Albuquerque
For pricing information and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Preparedness Evaluation can enhance your defense against crypto-ransomware in Albuquerque, phone Progent at 800-462-8800 or visit Contact Progent.