To protect your company's IT infrastructure, it's crucial to have a comprehensive and integrated ransomware prevention strategy.
How ransomware tactics are changing
Over the years, ransomware has evolved from a rudimentary inconvenience affecting individual users to a debilitating threat capable of bringing large corporations and entire city operations to a screeching halt.
Cybercrime is rising to the occasion, and ransomware attacks have shifted to take advantage of our data-driven economy and new ways of working. They are more efficient at infiltrating companies’ networks and hitting them where it hurts. Today, ransomware attackers don’t just encrypt companies’ data to demand ransom payments. Some new strains, like Maze, practice “ double extortion ” — encrypting your data and threatening to expose sensitive data to the public.
The pandemic has brought new malware tactics. Some japan whatsapp data use COVID-19 tactics to trick users into opening malicious links or attachments. Others take advantage of more people working from home, outside corporate firewalls, to sneak past security perimeters and wreak havoc.
Furthermore, cyber attackers have created delivery mechanisms that are difficult to detect because they mimic real application files and often come bundled with authentic software. For example, OSX.EvilQuest is a Mac ransomware that disguises itself as an installer for the Little Snitch host-based application firewall and the popular DJ software Mixed In Key 8.
What does modern IT infrastructure look like?
In theory, traditional on-premises IT infrastructures are easier to physically secure, but they lack the flexibility and scalability that modern businesses need to operate efficiently.
Due to the massive amounts of data that many organizations must manage, on-site storage and backup are no longer economically viable. Today, businesses of nearly all sizes run their systems on a mix of infrastructures, from on-premises and public and private clouds to hybrid and virtual environments.
This diversity of infrastructures supports everything from servers and routers to software and endpoints, creating an overwhelming level of complexity for your IT security team. Each system on each platform may have its own vendor support system and management interface. All of this introduces security vulnerabilities and poses challenges for production against ransomware. In addition, IT must address network enablement, internet connectivity, and network security across all of those infrastructures, and manage secure remote access for employees and external vendors.
And don’t forget software! Today’s businesses no longer restrict it to word processing and spreadsheets, but use it for almost every business function. We have tools for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, productivity, and collaboration. Those applications are likely to be supported and deployed in a variety of ways, such as on-premise, hosted, and SaaS environments .
This overview of the complex IT environments that IT teams must deal with every day is enough to expose the challenges for the team when it comes to protecting the organization's systems and data from cyber threats such as ransomware.
Fortunately, ransomware protection technology is rapidly adapting to address and neutralize the new and old threats facing businesses today.