Ransomware has been weaponized by cyber extortionists and rogue states, representing a potentially lethal risk to companies that are victimized. The latest strains of ransomware go after everything, including online backup, making even selective restoration a challenging and costly exercise. New versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, Conti and Egregor have made the headlines, displacing Locky, Cerber, and CryptoWall in prominence, elaborateness, and destructive impact.
Most crypto-ransomware penetrations are caused by innocuous-looking emails that have malicious links or attachments, and many are "zero-day" strains that can escape detection by traditional signature-based antivirus (AV) tools. While user education and frontline detection are important to protect against ransomware, best practices dictate that you expect that some attacks will eventually get through and that you put in place a strong backup mechanism that permits you to restore files and services quickly with little if any losses.
Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Checkup is an ultra-affordable service built around a remote interview with a Progent cybersecurity expert experienced in ransomware defense and repair. In the course of this interview Progent will collaborate directly with your Jacksonville IT management staff to collect critical data concerning your security configuration and backup processes. Progent will utilize this data to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment documenting how to follow leading practices for implementing and administering your security and backup solution to block or clean up after a ransomware assault.
Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report highlights key areas related to crypto-ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The report addresses:
Cybersecurity
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 victim's computer. To prevent the carnage, the target is asked to send a certain ransom, typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief time window. It is not guaranteed that paying the extortion price will restore the lost files or prevent its publication. Files can be encrypted or erased across a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the military-grade encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A common ransomware delivery package is spoofed email, in which the user is lured into interacting with by a social engineering exploit known as spear phishing. This makes the email message to look as though it came from a familiar source. Another common vulnerability is an improperly protected Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port.
CryptoLocker opened the modern era of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the damage attributed to by the many versions of ransomware is estimated at billions of dollars per year, roughly doubling every other year. Famous attacks are WannaCry, and Petya. Current headline variants like Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Spora are more sophisticated and have wreaked more damage than older versions. Even if your backup/recovery processes enable your business to restore your encrypted data, you can still be threatened by exfiltration, where stolen documents are exposed to the public. Because new variants of ransomware are launched daily, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-matching anti-virus filters will block a new malware. If an attack does appear in an email, it is critical that your users have learned to be aware of phishing tricks. Your last line of defense is a sound process for performing and retaining offsite backups and the use of reliable recovery tools.
Contact Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Report in Jacksonville
For pricing details and to find out more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Readiness Evaluation can enhance your defense against ransomware in Jacksonville, call Progent at