Charleston Ransomware Defense and Restoration Services

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations and bad-actor governments, posing a possibly lethal risk to businesses that are successfully attacked. Current strains of ransomware target everything, including backup, making even partial recovery a challenging and costly process. New strains of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, Conti and Nephilim have made the headlines, displacing Locky, TeslaCrypt, and CryptoWall in prominence, sophistication, and destructive impact.

90% of ransomware penetrations come from innocuous-seeming emails that have dangerous links or file attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" variants that elude the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus filters. Although user education and up-front detection are critical to protect your network against ransomware attacks, leading practices dictate that you assume some attacks will eventually get through and that you deploy a solid backup mechanism that enables you to recover quickly with minimal losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Report is an ultra-affordable service centered around a remote interview with a Progent security expert experienced in ransomware protection and repair. During this interview Progent will work with your Charleston IT managers to collect pertinent information about your cybersecurity profile and backup environment. Progent will use this data to create a Basic Security and Best Practices Report documenting how to follow best practices for configuring and administering your cybersecurity and backup solution to block or clean up after a crypto-ransomware attack.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment highlights key issues related to ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The report covers:

Cybersecurity

• Correct use of administration accounts
• Correct NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB authorizations
• Proper firewall settings
• Safe Remote Desktop Protocol connections
• Advice about AntiVirus filtering selection and configuration

• Split permission architecture for backup protection
• Backing up key servers such as AD
• Offsite backups including cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a variety of malicious software that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they cannot be used or are made publicly available. Ransomware often locks the target's computer. To prevent the carnage, the target is required to pay a certain amount of money (the ransom), typically via a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief time window. There is no guarantee that paying the extortion price will recover the lost files or prevent its exposure to the public. Files can be altered or erased throughout a network depending on the target's write permissions, and you cannot break the military-grade encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A common ransomware delivery package is booby-trapped email, in which the victim is tricked into interacting with by means of a social engineering technique known as spear phishing. This makes the email to appear to come from a trusted source. Another common attack vector is a poorly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.

CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the damage attributed to by the many strains of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every other year. Notorious attacks are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent high-profile threats like Ryuk, DoppelPaymer and TeslaCrypt are more sophisticated and have wreaked more havoc than earlier versions. Even if your backup/recovery processes permit you to restore your encrypted data, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where stolen documents are exposed to the public. Because additional variants of ransomware crop up every day, there is no certainty that traditional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect the latest attack. If an attack does appear in an email, it is important that your users have learned to be aware of phishing techniques. Your ultimate defense is a solid process for scheduling and keeping offsite backups and the deployment of reliable recovery tools.

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