It doesn’t matter if you’re a government entity, small business, or a Fortune 500 company, ransomware attacks can happen to anyone at any time. But, you’re not completely vulnerable to malicious threats. In fact, you have the power to protect what’s near and dear to you by simply developing a cybersecurity plan of action.
Kobargo Technology Partners is Arizona’s go-to for quality cybersecurity solutions. We work with a wide range of industry professionals to ensure their data is secure and out of the hands of malicious cyber activity. Read our blog posts below to learn how you can protect yourself from cyberattacks.
First, What Exactly is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malware designed to infiltrate and paralyze critical or sensitive data in an attempt to make them unusable. Data breaches obtain and encrypt the victim’s critical information and withhold it for ransom. This is a growing cyber threat that generates billions of dollars in ransom payment to cybercriminals. This type of data breach causes extreme damage to the operations of businesses, organizations, and their reputation.
How Do You Avoid Ransomware?
Train Your Employees
Your first line of defense is your users. Training them on how to spot malicious emails will go a long way to protect your company. However, there are some other things you can do to minimize the impact of a Ransomware attack.
Kobargo offers extensive security awareness training for all employees to ensure your business is safeguarded. Visit our Training Awareness page to learn more.
Backup your data and configurations:
Ensure that backups are regularly tested and that they are not connected to the business network, as many ransomware variants try to find and encrypt or delete accessible backups. Maintaining current backups offline is critical because if your network data is encrypted with ransomware, your organization can restore its systems.
Update And Patch Your Systems Promptly:
This includes maintaining the security of operating systems, applications, and firmware in a timely manner. Consider using a centralized patch management system; use a risk-based assessment strategy to drive your patch management program.
Test Your Incident Response Plan:
There’s nothing that shows the gaps in plans more than testing them. Run through some core questions and use those to build an incident response plan: Are you able to sustain business operations without access to certain systems? For how long? Would you turn off your manufacturing operations if business systems such as billing were offline?
Check Your Security Team’s Work:
Use a 3rd party pen tester to test the security of your systems and your ability to defend against a sophisticated attack. Many ransomware criminals are aggressive, sophisticated, and will find the unlocked doors of your digital infrastructure.
Segment Your Networks:
There’s been a recent shift in ransomware attacks – from stealing data to disrupting operations. It’s critically important that your business functions and manufacturing/production operations are separated, and that you carefully filter and limit internet access to operational networks. That is why you should identify links between these networks and develop workarounds or manual controls to ensure ICS networks can be isolated and continue operating if your corporate network is compromised. Regularly test contingency plans such as manual controls so that safety-critical functions can be maintained during a cyber incident.
Kobargo Can Help Protect You From Ransomware
Kobargo’s Cybersecurity team delivers a superior threat defense design using industry-leading security partners and technologies. We appropriately design and size affordably-priced solutions for small and mid-sized company budgets, including low total cost of ownership. As your security partner, we strengthen your defenses at all layers of the network with detection, visibility, and intelligence. If you require assistance with implementing a strong security profile or undertaking any of the initiatives listed in this article please contact us.
