For a few years, no day has gone without hearing some news about ransomware attacks. And since the trend of remote working has started, this menace has grown even more. To make matters worse, technology is aiding cybercriminals to become more sophisticated in their ill work. Ransomware is now considered to be a national security issue and it has become a major point of concern for organizations of all sorts. Hence, every business must include practices of cyber-attack prevention and ransomware recovery in their regular operations.
Ransomware attacks make organizations lose access to their data which puts their entire business at risk. These organizations get hacked because of their outdated or weak cyber attack protection techniques. If you are not already relying on a multilayered security strategy, consider these best practices to protect yourself against data breaches.
What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that attackers use against organizations to make their computers or files unusable. Cybercriminals deny access to files or devices and ask businesses to pay ransom to get back control of their systems and data. Usually, cyberpunks use infected software, damaged link, and fake ads to spread ransomware.
Once infected, attackers contact the victim organization to pay a ransom in order to receive the encryption key. But there is no guarantee that once paid, ransomware operators will follow through on the promise. On the other hand, if you don’t pay them, they may destroy your data or sell it to your competitors.
Best Practices for Cyber Attack Protection:
Following are the most workable practices to ensure the best malware protection for business.
Keep Offline Backups of Your Data:
In the event of a ransomware attack, the operator often deletes or encrypts your data as well as backups if they are online. This is why keeping offline backups has great significance. Furthermore, these backups should be encrypted and tested regularly to close all doors of failure. These backups will help you decrease the downtime if somehow the misfortune of ransomware attack occurs.
Protect all Your Accounts with Two-Factor Authentication:
Adding another authentication shield means the attacker has to have access to your physical device in addition to knowing your password. This second security wall to entry makes it much more difficult for cybercriminals to remotely log into your accounts. It is advisable to implement two-factor or multi-factor authentication on every account in general and administrator-level accounts in particular. This is because these accounts can allow access to sensitive information or give attackers permission to move laterally throughout your network and encrypt data with ransomware.
Limit the Access to Minimum Persons:
Limiting the number of users (having the privileged of accessing the data) will reduce the risk of a ransomware attack. Only those employees should be given access to the data that actually need access to perform their job duties. Also, restricting user permissions to install and run software applications will help in limiting the risk of malicious downloads.
Keep Your Systems and Software Up to Date:
Ransomware attackers are always after the vulnerabilities of the systems and software to carry out their illegal activities. Software and system providers, on the other hand, always try to remove vulnerabilities when they introduce a new version. This is why it is recommended that you should keep your systems and software updated. Doing so is considered the best malware protection for business data.
Things You Can Do for Ransomware Recovery:
If you are already under a ransomware attack, there are several methods you can try to restore ransomware encrypted files, rather than paying your attacker.
Restoring From Backups:
The quickest way to recover from a ransomware attack is simply restoring your systems from backups. For this method to work, you must have the most recent version of your data and applications. Additionally, this backup should not contain the ransomware you are currently infected with. If you have kept an offline backup, you are in the best possible position of data recovery. But you must eliminate the ransomware prior to restoration of your system.
Windows System Restore:
If you don’t have backups of your data, you can try the Windows System Restore utility to recover your data. This tool stores point-in-time backups for your Windows devices. You can roll back to when needed, and you may get your data back.
Data Recovery Software:
If other options have not worked, you can try using data recovery software for getting your data back. And for this, you can use dedicated ransomware backup solutions. This software can help you with,
- Extraction of corrupted or deleted data from storage devices
- Repairing hard drive partitions or de-formatting drives
Ransomware Decryption Tools:
It entirely depends on the type of ransomware you’re infected with if this solution will work in ransomware recovery or not. However, there are many decryption tools available to you. These tools can break the ransomware encryption placed on your files and applications using algorithms developed by security experts.
