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Ransomware can quickly infect many or all essential computers in your business and lock them until you pay a ransom through a digital currency like bitcoin. Ransomware attacks can cost millions to recover from and have shut down many companies.
According to Lloyd’s of London insurer Beazley Plc, ransom payments doubled year-on-year through the first six months of 2020. In addition, the insurer termed ransomware attacks as the most significant threat facing businesses.
The company’s chief of cyber and technology also said the authors of such attacks are getting bolder. Not only are they demanding more money, but they’re becoming more creative.
You Need Next Level Cybersecurity Tools
While antivirus software with anti-malware technology is a good shield against ransomware attacks, your business needs to go to the next level with endpoint detection and response (EDR) security tools. Of course, this begs the question: what is the difference between EDR and antivirus software for my business?
In a nutshell, endpoint protection is a significantly more sophisticated and robust type of anti-malware technology than the basic antivirus software you download from the Internet.
Endpoint protection features machine learning, behavioural analysis, known attack detection, exploits mitigation, cloud-based centralized management, automation, single-agent architecture, and remediation. With these features, it secures your business from all kinds of threats intelligently, including ransomware, spyware, viruses, Trojan horse attacks, malicious websites etc.
Unlike your garden variety antivirus/anti-malware tools, endpoint protection features centralized management to help shield every computer and device in your business. With real-time ransomware protection and mitigation, the best endpoint protection tools can minimize the severity of a ransomware attack.
So, what’s EDR?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is a form of endpoint defence technology that learns from cyberthreat behaviour to offer a more holistic approach. With cutting-edge EDR technology, your business can better understand cyberattacks and respond to them even more effectively. EDR can help strengthen secure your systems further and improve response time to threats.
Social Engineering Attacks
Aside from the best security tools, your company needs employee training in ransomware threat mitigation. With fraudsters using their experience and information technology skills to develop more sophisticated attacks by exploiting employee psychology, your business is more vulnerable than ever.
For example, phishing expeditions are harder to identify because they may use information about your employees, clients, or customers commonly available on social media platforms like LinkedIn to appear more authentic.
Likewise, baiting attacks may offer free products and services to your company based on your needs. For example, a hacker may pose as a cybersecurity business and offer you compromised software.
If your business faces a ransomware attack, disconnect all Internet connections immediately and isolate computers and devices infected with malware. It’s usually a bad idea to pay the ransom because it only encourages the hackers to target your company again in the future. Please remember that even after you pay the fee, the criminals may ask for more money.
A cybersecurity forensics team can help remove the ransomware infection and restore your data from your cloud backup. Please get in touch with law enforcement if your business is the victim of a ransomware attack to help in the war against cybercriminals.
