Birmingham Ransomware Protection and Remediation Consulting

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for cybercriminals and bad-actor states, representing a possibly existential threat to businesses that are victimized. Modern versions of crypto-ransomware target all vulnerable resources, including online backup, making even selective restoration a long and costly exercise. Novel variations of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Mailto (aka Netwalker), DopplePaymer, Conti and Egregor have made the headlines, replacing Locky, Spora, and Petya in prominence, elaborateness, and destructive impact.

Most crypto-ransomware penetrations are the result of innocuous-seeming emails that include malicious links or file attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" attacks that can escape detection by legacy signature-based antivirus (AV) tools. While user education and frontline detection are critical to protect your network against ransomware attacks, best practices demand that you expect that some malware will inevitably get through and that you put in place a solid backup solution that allows you to repair the damage rapidly with little if any damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Assessment is an ultra-affordable service built around a remote discussion with a Progent security expert skilled in ransomware protection and repair. During this assessment Progent will work directly with your Birmingham IT managers to gather pertinent data about your security configuration and backup environment. Progent will use this data to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment documenting how to follow leading practices for configuring and administering your security and backup systems to prevent or clean up after a ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment highlights vital issues related to ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The review addresses:

Security

• Effective allocation and use of admin accounts
• Assigning NTFS and SMB permissions
• Proper firewall setup
• Safe Remote Desktop Protocol connections
• Advice about AntiVirus (AV) filtering selection and deployment

• Split permission model for backup integrity
• Protecting key servers such as Active Directory
• Offsite backups including cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts or deletes files so they are unusable or are made publicly available. Ransomware sometimes locks the target's computer. To prevent the damage, the target is required to send a specified ransom, usually via a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief period of time. It is never certain that paying the ransom will recover the lost files or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be encrypted or deleted 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 common ransomware delivery package is tainted email, whereby the target is lured into responding to by a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email to appear to come from a trusted sender. Another popular attack vector is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.

CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by the many versions of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every two years. Famous examples are WannaCry, and Petya. Recent high-profile variants like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Cerber are more complex and have caused more damage than older versions. Even if your backup procedures allow your business to recover your ransomed files, you can still be threatened by so-called exfiltration, where stolen documents are exposed to the public (known as "doxxing"). Because new versions of ransomware crop up every day, there is no certainty that conventional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect the latest malware. If threat does show up in an email, it is important that your end users have been taught to be aware of social engineering tricks. Your ultimate defense is a solid scheme for performing and keeping remote backups plus the use of dependable restoration tools.

Contact Progent About the ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Preparedness Testing in Birmingham
For pricing details and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Readiness Review can bolster your defense against ransomware in Birmingham, phone Progent at 800-462-8800 or see Contact Progent.