Austin Ransomware Prevention and Removal Consulting
Ransomware Readiness Audit
Ransomware has been weaponized by cyber extortionists and malicious governments, representing a possibly existential risk to businesses that are victimized. The latest variations of crypto-ransomware go after everything, including online backup, making even selective recovery a long and expensive exercise. Novel versions of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Phobos, Snatch and Nephilim have emerged, replacing WannaCry, Spora, and Petya in prominence, elaborateness, and destructive impact.
Most crypto-ransomware penetrations are the result of innocent-seeming emails that have dangerous hyperlinks or file attachments, and many are "zero-day" variants that elude the defenses of traditional signature-matching antivirus filters. While user education and frontline identification are important to defend your network against ransomware, best practices dictate that you take for granted some attacks will inevitably get through and that you put in place a solid backup solution that allows you to recover quickly with minimal damage.
Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is an ultra-affordable service built around a remote interview with a Progent security consultant skilled in ransomware defense and repair. In the course of this interview Progent will cooperate with your Austin network managers to collect critical information concerning your security setup and backup processes. Progent will use this information to create a Basic Security and Best Practices Report documenting how to apply best practices for configuring and managing your cybersecurity and backup systems to block or recover from a ransomware attack.
Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report highlights key issues associated with crypto-ransomware defense and restoration recovery. The review addresses:
Cybersecurity
- Correct allocation and use of admin accounts
- Correct NTFS and SMB authorizations
- Optimal firewall settings
- Secure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access
- Advice about AntiVirus filtering identification and deployment
- Split permission model for backup protection
- Backing up critical servers including AD
- Geographically dispersed backups including cloud backup to Azure
About Ransomware
Ransomware is a variety of malware that encrypts or steals a victim's files so they cannot be used or are made publicly available. Crypto-ransomware often locks the target's computer. To prevent the damage, the target is asked to send a specified ransom, typically in the form of a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short time window. It is never certain that paying the extortion price will recover the damaged data or avoid its publication. Files can be encrypted or deleted across a network depending on the target's write permissions, and you cannot reverse engineer the military-grade encryption algorithms used on the hostage files. A typical ransomware attack vector is tainted email, in which the user is tricked into responding to by means of a social engineering exploit called spear phishing. This causes the email to look as though it came from a trusted sender. Another popular attack vector is a poorly protected RDP port.
CryptoLocker opened the modern era of ransomware in 2013, and the monetary losses caused by different versions of ransomware is said to be billions of dollars annually, roughly doubling every two years. Notorious attacks are Locky, and Petya. Current high-profile threats like Ryuk, Maze and Cerber are more complex and have caused more havoc than earlier versions. Even if your backup/recovery procedures allow you to recover your ransomed data, you can still be threatened by so-called exfiltration, where ransomed documents are made public (known as "doxxing"). Because new versions of ransomware crop up daily, there is no certainty that conventional signature-based anti-virus tools will detect the latest malware. If threat does appear in an email, it is important that your users have been taught to identify phishing tricks. Your ultimate protection is a sound scheme for performing and retaining offsite backups plus the use of reliable recovery tools.
Ask Progent About the ProSight Ransomware Susceptibility Assessment in Austin
For pricing information and to find out more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Readiness Assessment can bolster your protection against ransomware in Austin, phone Progent at
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