Boston Ransomware Protection and Remediation Consulting

Ransomware has been widely adopted by cybercriminals and rogue states, representing a potentially existential risk to businesses that are successfully attacked. The latest versions of ransomware go after all vulnerable resources, including online backup, making even selective restoration a long and costly exercise. New variations of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Mailto (aka Netwalker), DopplePaymer, LockBit and Egregor have made the headlines, displacing Locky, TeslaCrypt, and CryptoWall in notoriety, sophistication, and destructiveness.

Most ransomware infections come from innocent-seeming emails that include dangerous hyperlinks or attachments, and a high percentage are "zero-day" attacks that can escape the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus tools. While user training and frontline detection are critical to defend your network against ransomware, leading practices demand that you assume some attacks will eventually succeed and that you put in place a strong backup solution that permits you to recover quickly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Assessment is an ultra-affordable service centered around an online discussion with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware protection and repair. In the course of this assessment Progent will collaborate with your Boston IT managers to gather pertinent data concerning your cybersecurity profile and backup processes. Progent will utilize this information to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Report detailing how to apply leading practices for implementing and administering your cybersecurity and backup systems to block or clean up after a ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment focuses on vital areas related to crypto-ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The report addresses:

Cybersecurity

• Correct use of administration accounts
• Correct NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB authorizations
• Proper firewall configuration
• Secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access
• Guidance for AntiVirus (AV) tools selection and configuration

• Split permission model for backup protection
• Protecting required servers such as Active Directory
• Geographically dispersed backups including cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they are unusable or are publicized. Crypto-ransomware sometimes locks the victim's computer. To avoid the damage, the target is required to send a certain amount of money, usually in the form of a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a short period of time. It is not guaranteed that paying the extortion price will restore the lost files or avoid its publication. Files can be encrypted or deleted across a network based on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the military-grade encryption technologies used on the compromised files. A common ransomware attack vector is tainted email, whereby the user is lured into responding to by a social engineering technique known as spear phishing. This makes the email to look as though it came from a trusted sender. Another popular vulnerability is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker opened the new age of ransomware in 2013, and the damage attributed to by different strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every two years. Famous examples include Locky, and NotPetya. Recent high-profile variants like Ryuk, Maze and Cerber are more complex and have wreaked more damage than older strains. Even if your backup/recovery processes permit your business to restore your encrypted files, you can still be threatened by exfiltration, where ransomed data are made public. Because new variants of ransomware crop up every day, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-matching anti-virus tools will block a new malware. If an attack does show up in an email, it is important that your end users have been taught to identify phishing tricks. Your ultimate defense is a sound scheme for scheduling and keeping offsite backups plus the use of dependable restoration tools.

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