Austin Ransomware Protection and Removal Solutions

Ransomware has been widely adopted by cybercriminals and malicious governments, posing a possibly lethal threat to companies that are victimized. Current strains of crypto-ransomware go after everything, including backup, making even selective restoration a long and costly process. Novel strains of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Conti and Nephilim have emerged, replacing WannaCry, Spora, and Petya in notoriety, sophistication, and destructiveness.

Most ransomware breaches are the result of innocent-seeming emails that include dangerous hyperlinks or attachments, and many are "zero-day" attacks that elude the defenses of legacy signature-based antivirus tools. Although user education and frontline identification are important to protect your network against ransomware attacks, leading practices demand that you expect that some attacks will eventually get through and that you prepare a solid backup solution that allows you to restore files and services quickly with little if any damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Report is a low-cost service built around a remote discussion with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware defense and repair. During this interview Progent will work with your Austin IT management staff to gather critical information about your security setup and backup processes. Progent will use this information to create a Basic Security and Best Practices Report documenting how to apply 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 key areas associated with crypto-ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review covers:

Security

• Proper allocation and use of admin accounts
• Appropriate NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) permissions
• Optimal firewall setup
• Safe Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) configuration
• Recommend AntiVirus filtering selection and deployment

• Split permission model for backup protection
• Backing up critical servers including AD
• Geographically dispersed backups with cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts or deletes files so they cannot be used or are made publicly available. Ransomware sometimes locks the victim's computer. To avoid the carnage, the victim is required to send a certain amount of money (the ransom), typically via a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short period of time. It is never certain that paying the ransom will restore the lost data or avoid its publication. Files can be encrypted or erased throughout a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot solve the military-grade encryption technologies used on the compromised files. A typical ransomware attack vector is spoofed email, in which the user is tricked into interacting with by a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email to appear to come from a familiar source. Another common vulnerability is an improperly protected RDP port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker opened the modern era of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the damage caused by the many versions of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars annually, more than doubling every two years. Famous examples include Locky, and Petya. Recent headline variants like Ryuk, DoppelPaymer and TeslaCrypt are more complex and have wreaked more damage than older strains. Even if your backup/recovery procedures allow you to restore your encrypted files, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where ransomed data are made public (known as "doxxing"). Because new variants of ransomware crop up every day, there is no certainty that traditional signature-matching anti-virus tools will detect a new malware. If an attack does appear in an email, it is important that your end users have been taught to identify phishing techniques. Your ultimate defense is a solid process for performing and keeping offsite backups and the use of reliable restoration tools.

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