Houston Ransomware Filtering and Removal Services

Ransomware has been widely adopted by cybercriminals and rogue states, representing a possibly existential risk to companies that are breached. Current strains of ransomware go after everything, including backup, making even selective restoration a challenging and expensive process. New strains of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Mailto (aka Netwalker), DopplePaymer, Snatch and Nephilim have made the headlines, replacing WannaCry, Spora, and CryptoWall in prominence, sophistication, and destructive impact.

Most ransomware breaches are caused by innocent-seeming emails with dangerous hyperlinks or file attachments, and a high percentage are so-called "zero-day" variants that elude detection by legacy signature-matching antivirus filters. Although user training and frontline detection are important to defend against ransomware, best practices demand that you take for granted some attacks will inevitably get through and that you put in place a strong backup mechanism that allows you to recover rapidly with little if any damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is an ultra-affordable service centered around a remote interview with a Progent cybersecurity expert skilled in ransomware protection and repair. In the course of this assessment Progent will cooperate directly with your Houston IT management staff to gather pertinent information about your cybersecurity posture and backup environment. Progent will use this data to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Report detailing how to adhere to best practices for implementing and managing your cybersecurity and backup solution to prevent or clean up after a ransomware assault.

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

Cybersecurity

• Effective allocation and use of admin accounts
• Correct NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) authorizations
• Proper firewall settings
• Safe RDP access
• Recommend AntiVirus (AV) filtering identification and deployment

• Split permission model for backup integrity
• Protecting critical servers such as AD
• Offsite backups with cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form 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 victim's computer. To avoid the carnage, the victim is required to pay a specified amount of money, typically via a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a short period of time. There is no guarantee that paying the ransom will restore the damaged files or avoid its publication. Files can be encrypted or erased across a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot break the strong encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A common ransomware delivery package is spoofed email, whereby the user is lured into interacting with by means of a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email message to look as though it came from a trusted sender. Another common attack vector is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the damage attributed to by the many strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every other year. Famous examples are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent high-profile threats like Ryuk, Maze and TeslaCrypt are more elaborate and have wreaked more havoc than earlier strains. Even if your backup processes enable your business to recover your ransomed files, you can still be threatened by so-called exfiltration, where ransomed data are made public (known as "doxxing"). Because additional versions of ransomware are launched every day, there is no certainty that conventional signature-matching anti-virus filters will detect the latest malware. If threat does show up in an email, it is critical that your end users have been taught to be aware of social engineering techniques. Your last line of protection is a sound scheme for performing and keeping offsite backups and the deployment of dependable restoration platforms.

Ask Progent About the ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Susceptibility Review in Houston
For pricing details and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Consultation can bolster your protection against crypto-ransomware in Houston, call Progent at 800-462-8800 or see Contact Progent.