Protecting Against Evolving Ransomware Attack Trends

Ransomware attack patterns are always changing, and the latest variants are no exception. Malicious actors have targeted healthcare organizations, medical trials, schools, and shipping companies in recent years. Given the potential impact of current assaults on businesses of all sizes and industries, security professionals must always be prepared to defend their systems, networks, and software in novel ways. Ransomware is a prevalent danger, according to a recent FortiGuard Labs global threat landscape report, which rose in 2020 and became even more destructive. Your organization will be able to secure every user and device on and off the network with the advanced response if you have endpoint security software and device protection solutions in place.

How Do Ransomware Attacks Happen?

Ransomware as a method of attack has the potential to wreak significant damage. Advanced assaults penetrate endpoints in seconds, and ransomware attacks do damage to your systems and infrastructure in seconds, so it’s vital to make sure your company is prepared. As assaults get more sophisticated, the consequences go beyond the financial losses and lost productivity that is commonly linked with system outages. Instead, threat experts are seeing encrypted versions of data being put online – not only held for ransom – with the threat that if the ransom is not paid, but all of the material will also be published to the public or sold to a buyer. As a result, businesses with a business strategy based on negotiating ransoms have begun to develop on the Dark Web. While such systems may appear to be a quick remedy, they can have long-term detrimental consequences, including the normalizing of criminal behavior.

Ransomware attacks have also begun to target new data and technology kinds as IT and OT systems combine. Malicious actors have shifted their focus from corporate networks to the OT edge as field devices and sensors have become new targets. As a result, electricity grids, transportation management infrastructures, medical systems, and other key resources are more vulnerable than ever. And this move has ramifications beyond sensitive data. These Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices at the OT edge are also accountable for people’s physical safety, highlighting the seriousness of network breaches.

Making a Difficult Choice

When confronted with a ransomware assault, some businesses may decide that paying the ransom is preferable to having their IT team spend days attempting to retrieve data while business operations are halted. This isn’t always the case, though. The US Treasury reminded businesses of this fact by warning that making ransom payments on behalf of cyber victims could result in legal ramifications, as it sets a terrible precedent for other cybercriminals. It’s also worth noting that paying a ransom does not guarantee that the threat will vanish immediately. In some circumstances, the data that firms had fought so hard to preserve had already been disclosed, resulting in additional long-term issues.

How to Prevent Ransomware Attacks

End-users are a high-target, high-value asset for attackers. Ransomware takes advantage of social engineering attacks, relying on people’s concerns to install harmful malware on their computers. With this in mind, cyber hygiene must begin at the board level.

The following are examples of a top-down approach to developing a solid ransomware mitigation strategy:

1. Employees should be informed about new social engineering attack tactics on a regular basis so they know what to look out for.
2. Setting up a zero-trust access (ZTA) strategy with segmentation and micro-segmentation.
3. Backing up data on a regular basis and storing it offline and off-network to ensure quick recovery.
4. To prevent data from being exposed, all data within the network is encrypted.
5. Regularly practicing response techniques to ensure that all responsible parties are aware of what to do in the event of an attack, resulting in less downtime.
6. Using behavior-based endpoint security to automatically detect and disarm possible attacks in real-time, even on infected hosts.
7. Employees, as well as their families and kids, are receiving rigorous cybersecurity training and awareness. Today, the home is a new branch and a portal into the core network.

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