Birmingham Ransomware Defense and Recovery Expertise

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations and malicious governments, representing a potentially existential risk to businesses that are victimized. The latest strains of crypto-ransomware go after all vulnerable resources, including backup, making even selective recovery a challenging and expensive process. Novel strains of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, LockBit and Egregor have emerged, displacing WannaCry, TeslaCrypt, and CryptoWall in notoriety, elaborateness, and destructiveness.

Most crypto-ransomware breaches are the result of innocent-seeming emails with malicious hyperlinks or file attachments, and a high percentage are "zero-day" strains that can escape the defenses of legacy signature-based antivirus filters. While user education and frontline detection are critical to protect your network against ransomware, leading practices demand that you assume some malware will eventually succeed and that you prepare a solid backup mechanism that allows you to recover rapidly with little if any losses.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Assessment is a low-cost service centered around a remote discussion with a Progent cybersecurity consultant skilled in ransomware protection and repair. During this interview Progent will cooperate with your Birmingham network managers to gather pertinent information concerning your security setup and backup processes. Progent will utilize this information to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Report documenting how to apply best practices for configuring and managing your cybersecurity and backup systems to prevent or clean up after a ransomware assault.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report focuses on key areas associated with crypto-ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The report addresses:

Cybersecurity

• Proper allocation and use of admin accounts
• Appropriate NTFS and SMB (Server Message Block) permissions
• Proper firewall configuration
• Secure RDP connections
• Guidance for AntiVirus filtering identification 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 a victim's files so they are unusable or are made publicly available. Crypto-ransomware sometimes locks the target's computer. To avoid the damage, the victim is asked to send a certain amount of money, typically via a crypto currency such as Bitcoin, within a short period of time. There is no guarantee that delivering the ransom will restore the lost files or avoid its publication. Files can be altered or erased across a network depending on the target's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the strong encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware attack vector is tainted email, whereby the user is lured into responding to by means of a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email message to appear to come from a trusted source. Another common attack vector is an improperly secured RDP port.

CryptoLocker opened the new age of ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses attributed to by the many versions of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every other year. Notorious examples are Locky, and NotPetya. Recent high-profile variants like Ryuk, Maze and Spora are more complex and have caused more havoc than earlier strains. Even if your backup/recovery procedures allow your business to restore your ransomed data, you can still be hurt by exfiltration, where stolen data are exposed to the public. Because new versions of ransomware are launched daily, there is no certainty that conventional signature-based anti-virus filters will block a new malware. If threat does show up in an email, it is important that your users have been taught to identify social engineering tricks. Your ultimate protection is a sound scheme for scheduling and retaining offsite backups and the deployment of dependable recovery platforms.

Ask Progent About the ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Vulnerability Testing in Birmingham
For pricing information and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Evaluation can bolster your protection against crypto-ransomware in Birmingham, call Progent at 800-462-8800 or see Contact Progent.