Birmingham Ransomware Filtering and Cleanup Consulting

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for cybercriminals and rogue governments, representing a possibly existential risk to companies that fall victim. Current strains of ransomware go after everything, including backup, making even selective restoration a long and expensive exercise. Novel versions of crypto-ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, LockBit and Egregor have emerged, replacing WannaCry, TeslaCrypt, and Petya in notoriety, sophistication, and destructive impact.

Most crypto-ransomware infections are caused by innocent-looking emails that have malicious links or attachments, and a high percentage are so-called "zero-day" strains that elude detection by legacy signature-based antivirus filters. Although user education and up-front identification are important to protect against ransomware, best practices demand that you take for granted some malware will eventually succeed and that you deploy a strong backup mechanism that permits you to recover quickly with minimal losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Checkup is an ultra-affordable service built around a remote discussion with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware protection and recovery. During this assessment Progent will cooperate directly with your Birmingham network management staff to gather pertinent information about your security profile and backup processes. Progent will use this information to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment detailing how to follow best practices for implementing and administering your cybersecurity and backup solution to prevent or clean up after a ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment highlights vital areas related to ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review covers:

Security

• Proper allocation and use of administration accounts
• Appropriate NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB permissions
• Proper firewall setup
• Secure RDP connections
• Advice about AntiVirus filtering identification and configuration

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

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they are unusable or are publicized. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To avoid the damage, the target is required to send a specified amount of money, usually via a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a short period of time. It is never certain that delivering the extortion price will recover the damaged files or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be encrypted or erased across a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot break the military-grade encryption technologies used on the compromised files. A typical ransomware delivery package is tainted email, whereby the target is lured into interacting with by a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This makes the email message to appear to come from a trusted source. Another common attack vector is a poorly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker opened the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by the many strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every two years. Famous examples are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent headline threats like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Spora are more elaborate and have wreaked more havoc than earlier versions. Even if your backup procedures allow your business to restore your encrypted data, you can still be threatened by so-called exfiltration, where ransomed documents are made public. Because additional variants of ransomware are launched daily, there is no certainty that traditional signature-based anti-virus filters will block the latest attack. If threat does show up in an email, it is important that your users have been taught to identify social engineering tricks. Your ultimate defense is a sound process for performing and retaining offsite backups and the use of reliable restoration platforms.

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