Anchorage Ransomware Prevention and Cleanup Expertise

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations and malicious states, representing a potentially existential threat to businesses that are breached. The latest variations of ransomware go after all vulnerable resources, including backup, making even partial restoration a challenging and expensive exercise. Novel variations of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Mailto (aka Netwalker), DopplePaymer, Conti and Egregor have emerged, replacing WannaCry, Spora, and Petya in notoriety, sophistication, and destructiveness.

Most ransomware breaches are caused by innocent-seeming emails that include dangerous links or file attachments, and a high percentage are so-called "zero-day" attacks that can escape detection by legacy signature-based antivirus (AV) filters. Although user education and frontline identification are critical to defend your network against ransomware, best practices dictate that you expect that some attacks will inevitably get through and that you put in place a strong backup solution that enables you to recover rapidly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is an ultra-affordable service centered around a remote interview with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware defense and recovery. During this assessment Progent will work directly with your Anchorage IT management staff to collect critical data concerning your security configuration 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 implementing and managing your security and backup systems to prevent or recover from a ransomware assault.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report highlights vital issues related to crypto-ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The report addresses:

Cybersecurity

• Proper allocation and use of administration accounts
• Correct NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) permissions
• Optimal firewall configuration
• Safe Remote Desktop Protocol configuration
• Guidance for AntiVirus (AV) filtering selection and deployment

• Split permission model for backup integrity
• Backing up key servers including Active Directory
• Geographically dispersed backups including cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malicious software that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they cannot be used or are publicized. Ransomware often locks the target's computer. To avoid the carnage, the target is required to pay a specified ransom, usually in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief time window. There is no guarantee that delivering the extortion price will recover the damaged data or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be altered or erased throughout a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the military-grade encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware delivery package is booby-trapped email, whereby the user is lured into interacting with by means of a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email message to look as though it came from a familiar source. Another popular vulnerability is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by the many versions of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every two years. Notorious attacks are WannaCry, and Petya. Recent headline variants like Ryuk, Maze and CryptoWall are more complex and have wreaked more damage than earlier versions. Even if your backup/recovery procedures enable your business to restore your encrypted data, you can still be threatened by so-called exfiltration, where stolen documents are made public (known as "doxxing"). Because additional versions of ransomware crop up every day, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-matching anti-virus filters will block a new malware. If threat does show up in an email, it is important that your end users have been taught to identify phishing techniques. Your last line of protection is a sound scheme for performing and retaining remote backups and the deployment of dependable recovery tools.

Ask Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Testing in Anchorage
For pricing information and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Preparedness Report can bolster your protection against crypto-ransomware in Anchorage, phone Progent at 800-462-8800 or visit Contact Progent.