Calgary Ransomware Defense and Recovery Services

Ransomware has been weaponized by cyber extortionists and malicious governments, posing a potentially existential risk to businesses that are successfully attacked. The latest strains of crypto-ransomware target all vulnerable resources, including online backup, making even selective restoration a long and costly process. Novel versions of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Snatch and Nephilim have made the headlines, displacing Locky, Spora, and CryptoWall in prominence, elaborateness, and destructive impact.

90% of ransomware breaches are caused by innocuous-seeming emails that include malicious links or attachments, and many are "zero-day" variants that can escape detection by legacy signature-based antivirus filters. Although user education and up-front detection are critical to defend against ransomware attacks, leading practices dictate that you take for granted some attacks will inevitably get through and that you deploy a strong backup solution that allows you to repair the damage rapidly with minimal losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Assessment is an ultra-affordable service centered around an online interview with a Progent cybersecurity expert experienced in ransomware protection and repair. In the course of this interview Progent will collaborate with your Calgary IT managers to gather pertinent data concerning your cybersecurity posture and backup processes. Progent will use this information to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Report detailing how to follow best practices for configuring and managing your security and backup solution to block or recover from a crypto-ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment focuses on key areas related to ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review addresses:

Security

• Proper use of admin accounts
• Assigning NTFS and SMB (Server Message Block) authorizations
• Optimal firewall setup
• Secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access
• Recommend AntiVirus (AV) tools selection and configuration

• Split permission architecture for backup protection
• Protecting critical servers including AD
• Offsite backups including cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts or steals files so they cannot be used or are made publicly available. Crypto-ransomware sometimes locks the target's computer. To prevent the damage, the victim is asked to send a certain amount of money (the ransom), usually in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short time window. It is never certain that delivering the ransom will recover the lost files or prevent its publication. Files can be altered or deleted throughout a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the strong encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware delivery package is spoofed email, whereby the user is lured into interacting with by a social engineering exploit known as spear phishing. This causes the email to appear to come from a familiar source. Another popular vulnerability is a poorly secured RDP port.

CryptoLocker opened the modern era of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by the many strains of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars per year, roughly doubling every other year. Notorious attacks are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent headline variants like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Cerber are more sophisticated and have caused more damage than older versions. Even if your backup processes enable you to recover your ransomed data, you can still be hurt by so-called exfiltration, where ransomed documents are exposed to the public. Because new versions of ransomware crop up every day, there is no certainty that conventional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect a new attack. If an attack does appear in an email, it is critical that your users have been taught to be aware of phishing techniques. Your ultimate defense is a sound scheme for performing and keeping offsite backups and the deployment of reliable restoration platforms.

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