Columbus Ransomware Defense and Cleanup Consulting

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations and bad-actor states, posing a potentially existential threat to businesses that are breached. The latest strains of ransomware go after all vulnerable resources, including backup, making even partial recovery a long and expensive exercise. New strains of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, LockBit and Nephilim have emerged, replacing WannaCry, Spora, and Petya in notoriety, sophistication, and destructiveness.

Most ransomware penetrations come from innocuous-seeming emails that have malicious hyperlinks or attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" attacks that can escape detection by traditional signature-based antivirus (AV) tools. While user education and up-front identification are critical to defend your network against ransomware, leading practices demand that you take for granted some malware will eventually get through and that you deploy a strong backup solution that enables you to restore files and services quickly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Checkup is a low-cost service built around an online discussion with a Progent cybersecurity consultant skilled in ransomware protection and recovery. In the course of this assessment Progent will collaborate directly with your Columbus network management staff to gather pertinent data concerning your cybersecurity setup and backup environment. Progent will use this information to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment documenting how to follow best practices for implementing and managing your security and backup solution to block or recover from a crypto-ransomware assault.

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

Security

• Correct use of administration accounts
• Assigning NTFS and SMB (Server Message Block) permissions
• Optimal firewall settings
• Safe RDP connections
• Guidance for AntiVirus (AV) tools selection and deployment

• 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 malicious software that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they are unusable or are made publicly available. Ransomware often locks the target's computer. To avoid the damage, the victim is asked to send a certain amount of money (the ransom), typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short time window. It is not guaranteed that paying the ransom will recover the lost files or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be altered or deleted across a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the military-grade encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A common ransomware delivery package is booby-trapped email, whereby the target is lured into interacting with by a social engineering technique called spear phishing. This makes the email message to look as though it came from a trusted sender. Another popular vulnerability is a poorly protected RDP port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker opened the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses attributed to by different strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every two years. Notorious attacks are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent headline threats like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Cerber are more complex and have wreaked more havoc than earlier strains. Even if your backup procedures allow you to restore your encrypted data, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where ransomed documents are exposed to the public. Because new versions of ransomware are launched daily, there is no guarantee that traditional signature-matching anti-virus filters will block the latest malware. If an attack does appear in an email, it is critical that your users have been taught to be aware of social engineering techniques. Your ultimate defense is a solid process for scheduling and keeping offsite backups and the deployment of dependable recovery tools.

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