Dallas Ransomware Filtering and Cleanup Solutions

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations and rogue states, posing a possibly existential risk to businesses that are breached. Modern variations of crypto-ransomware go after everything, including backup, making even selective restoration a complex and expensive exercise. Novel strains of crypto-ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, LockBit and Nephilim have made the headlines, replacing Locky, Cerber, and Petya in prominence, sophistication, and destructive impact.

Most ransomware breaches are caused by innocuous-seeming emails that have dangerous hyperlinks or attachments, and a high percentage are so-called "zero-day" attacks that elude the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus filters. Although user education and up-front identification are important to defend your network against ransomware attacks, best practices dictate that you take for granted some malware will eventually succeed and that you prepare a solid backup solution that permits you to restore files and services rapidly with minimal losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Assessment is a low-cost service centered around a remote discussion with a Progent security expert experienced in ransomware protection and repair. In the course of this assessment Progent will cooperate directly with your Dallas IT management staff to gather critical information about your security configuration and backup environment. Progent will use this data to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment detailing how to follow leading practices for configuring and administering your cybersecurity and backup solution to block or recover from a crypto-ransomware attack.

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

Security

• Effective allocation and use of administration accounts
• Assigning NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) authorizations
• Optimal firewall configuration
• Safe RDP connections
• Recommend AntiVirus (AV) tools identification and deployment

• Split permission architecture for backup integrity
• Protecting critical servers such as Active Directory
• Offsite backups including cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts or deletes a victim's files so they are unusable or are made publicly available. Crypto-ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To avoid the carnage, the target is asked to send a certain amount of money, typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief period of time. It is never certain that paying the extortion price will restore the lost data or prevent its publication. Files can be altered or erased across a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot solve the military-grade encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware attack vector is spoofed email, in which the target is lured into interacting with by means of a social engineering technique known as spear phishing. This causes the email message to look as though it came from a familiar sender. Another common vulnerability is an improperly secured RDP port.

CryptoLocker ushered in the modern era of ransomware in 2013, and the damage attributed to by different strains of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every other year. Notorious examples are Locky, and NotPetya. Current headline variants like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and TeslaCrypt are more sophisticated and have wreaked more damage than older strains. Even if your backup processes allow your business to recover your ransomed files, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where stolen data are made public. Because additional variants of ransomware crop up every day, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-based anti-virus tools will block the latest attack. If threat does show up in an email, it is important that your end users have been taught to identify social engineering tricks. Your last line of protection is a solid process for scheduling and keeping remote backups and the use of reliable recovery tools.

Contact Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Evaluation in Dallas
For pricing details and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Assessment can enhance your defense against ransomware in Dallas, phone Progent at 800-462-8800 or see Contact Progent.