Alexandria Ransomware Defense and Remediation Consulting
Ransomware Susceptibility Assessment
Ransomware has been weaponized by cyber extortionists and bad-actor states, posing a possibly existential risk to businesses that are successfully attacked. Current versions of crypto-ransomware target everything, including backup, making even selective recovery a challenging and expensive exercise. New versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Mailto (aka Netwalker), Phobos, Snatch and Egregor have emerged, displacing WannaCry, Spora, and CryptoWall in notoriety, elaborateness, and destructive impact.
Most ransomware breaches are the result of innocent-looking emails with malicious hyperlinks or file attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" strains that elude detection by legacy signature-based antivirus (AV) tools. While user education and frontline detection are important to protect against ransomware, leading practices dictate that you take for granted some malware will eventually get through and that you prepare a strong backup mechanism that permits you to repair the damage quickly with little if any damage.
Progent's ProSight Ransomware Vulnerability Checkup is a low-cost service centered around an online interview with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware protection and repair. In the course of this interview Progent will work directly with your Alexandria IT management staff to gather pertinent information concerning your cybersecurity profile and backup environment. Progent will use this data to generate a Basic Security and Best Practices Report documenting how to follow best practices for implementing and managing your cybersecurity and backup solution to block or recover from a ransomware assault.
Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report highlights key areas associated with ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The report addresses:
Cybersecurity
- Effective allocation and use of administration accounts
- Assigning NTFS (New Technology File System) and SMB (Server Message Block) authorizations
- Optimal firewall setup
- Safe Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connections
- Guidance for AntiVirus filtering identification and deployment
- Split permission model for backup protection
- Backing up required servers including Active Directory
- Offsite backups including cloud backup to Microsoft Azure
About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malicious software that encrypts or steals files so they cannot be used or are publicized. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer. To prevent the carnage, the target is required to pay a specified ransom, typically via a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a brief time window. It is never certain that paying the extortion price will recover the damaged files or prevent its exposure to the public. Files can be encrypted or deleted throughout a network based on the target's write permissions, and you cannot solve the military-grade encryption technologies used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware attack vector is booby-trapped email, in which the user is tricked into interacting with by a social engineering technique called spear phishing. This causes the email to appear to come from a familiar source. Another common attack vector is an improperly protected Remote Desktop Protocol port.
CryptoLocker opened the new age of crypto-ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by the many strains of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars per year, more than doubling every other year. Famous examples include WannaCry, and Petya. Current headline variants like Ryuk, DoppelPaymer and Spora are more complex and have wreaked more havoc than older versions. Even if your backup procedures enable you to recover your ransomed files, you can still be hurt by so-called exfiltration, where ransomed data are made public (known as "doxxing"). Because additional variants of ransomware crop up daily, there is no guarantee that traditional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect a new attack. If an attack does appear in an email, it is critical that your end users have learned to be aware of social engineering techniques. Your ultimate protection is a sound process for scheduling and keeping offsite backups and the deployment of reliable restoration platforms.
Contact Progent About the ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Preparedness Review in Alexandria
For pricing information and to find out more about how Progent's ProSight Crypto-Ransomware Readiness Testing can enhance your defense against crypto-ransomware in Alexandria, call Progent at
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