Ransomware - The largest threat to your company
Years ago when you got a virus on your computer it would show you popups on webpages or damage windows so that it would not work properly. Unfortunately the landscape has changed. With the advent of anonymous payment methods the incentive to be paid for infecting your computer has risen exponentially. Now software exists that once on your computer will encrypt every document on your computer, and every asset that the computer has access to. It will then show you a ransom message demanding crypto currency in exchange for the decryption key.
If you click the link below you can see a visualization of Ransomware attacks by year
Information Is Beautiful Ransomware Attacks
How to protect yourself
Though there is no one perfect solution, there are things that you can do to mitigate the chances of being infected.
- Educate your employees - Know what types of things are attack vectors.
- Web filtering - Block websites that are known to spread malware.
- Active content inspection - Look at the traffic that is coming into your network.
- Antivirus - Using signatures to block known malicious code.
The list goes on, however there is no perfect solution, and as the saying goes “it is not IF, it is WHEN”
The best way to protect yourself against ransomware is to have a SOLID backup strategy and a disaster recovery plan. Learn more here…
So how do you protect yourself?
After all the best practice security is in place, what can you do?
- Educate your employees
- Have good backups in place.
- Have a disaster recovery plan.
- Have a printed document detailing your network topology - the digital one will be inaccessible.
- Educate your employees more