Washington Ransomware Protection and Remediation Solutions

Ransomware has been widely adopted by cybercriminals and malicious governments, representing a potentially existential risk to businesses that are victimized. Modern strains of crypto-ransomware target all vulnerable resources, including online backup, making even partial recovery a challenging and expensive exercise. Novel versions of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, DopplePaymer, Snatch and Egregor have emerged, replacing Locky, Cerber, and Petya in prominence, elaborateness, and destructive impact.

Most ransomware penetrations are caused by innocuous-seeming emails that have malicious links or file attachments, and a high percentage are "zero-day" attacks that elude the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus tools. Although user training and frontline identification are important to defend against ransomware, leading practices demand that you expect that some attacks will eventually get through and that you put in place a strong backup solution that enables you to restore files and services quickly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Assessment is a low-cost service built around a remote discussion with a Progent cybersecurity expert skilled in ransomware protection and recovery. During this interview Progent will work directly with your Washington network managers to gather critical information about your security profile and backup environment. Progent will utilize this data to produce a Basic Security and Best Practices Assessment documenting how to apply leading practices for configuring 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 vital areas associated with ransomware prevention and restoration recovery. The review covers:

Cybersecurity

• Effective use of administration accounts
• Assigning NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB authorizations
• Proper firewall setup
• Secure RDP connections
• Advice about AntiVirus tools selection and configuration

• Split permission model for backup integrity
• Backing up critical servers including Active Directory
• Geographically dispersed backups with cloud backup to Microsoft Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts or steals files so they cannot be used or are publicized. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To avoid the damage, the victim is asked to send a certain ransom, typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short period of time. There is no guarantee that paying the extortion price will restore the lost files or avoid its exposure to the public. Files can be encrypted or erased throughout a network depending on the target's write permissions, and you cannot solve the strong encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A common ransomware delivery package is spoofed email, in which the victim is lured into responding to by a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email message to appear to come from a familiar sender. Another popular attack vector is an improperly protected RDP port.

The ransomware variant CryptoLocker ushered in the new age of ransomware in 2013, and the damage caused by the many versions of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every other year. Famous examples include Locky, and NotPetya. Current high-profile variants like Ryuk, Maze and Cerber are more elaborate and have wreaked more havoc than earlier versions. Even if your backup/recovery processes permit your business to restore your ransomed files, you can still be threatened by exfiltration, where ransomed data are exposed to the public. Because new versions of ransomware are launched every day, there is no certainty that conventional signature-matching anti-virus tools will detect the latest attack. If an attack does show up in an email, it is critical that your end users have learned to identify social engineering tricks. Your ultimate protection is a sound scheme for scheduling and keeping offsite backups plus the deployment of reliable restoration tools.

Ask Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Report in Washington
For pricing details and to find out more about how Progent's ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Readiness Testing can enhance your defense against crypto-ransomware in Washington, phone Progent at 800-462-8800 or visit Contact Progent.