Ransomware is a growing security threat among businesses, home, and government networks. Thus, it is crucial for everyone who runs a network to understand the preventive measures they can take against ransomware. Prevention is the most effective way to deal with ransomware attacks. An attack can be devastating for an organization or individual and may require a substantial amount of time and money to recover.
The end users of a network are the primary ransomware target. As such, it is important to educate your employees and other network users about the ransomware threat and how it is implemented. Such knowledge will help users to be alert to any suspicious link.
Spam filters not only bar phishing emails from getting to the end users but also authenticate inbound emails. Authentication of inbound emails prevents email spoofing.
Administrative accounts are the main target for attackers because they hold all the valuable information. As such, you should manage all your privileged accounts based on least privilege principle. This means that no user should be offered administrative access to your network unless it is necessary. Also, employees that must use administrative accounts should use them only when necessary.
With the rising incidence of cyber attacks, secure backups are paramount for absolutely every business. So, ensure that your backups are separate from the main computers and networks being backed up. You could secure your data in the cloud or store it physically offline. However, some ransomware attacks have locked cloud-based backups in instances where a network continuously backs up in real time. System backups are critical and the only sure way to recover from a ransomware attack, so, if you are not sure of how to secure your backup, seek expert advice.
Application whitelisting allows your system to execute only the programs it recognizes and that are permitted by your security policy. To gain the greatest benefit from this preventive feature, consider categorizing your data according to organizational value. Use logical and physical separation of data and networks from all your administrative units.
Access controls include directories, network share permissions, and files. Use privilege to control them. That is, if a user only requires going through particular files, they should have write access to those files and should only access what they need. They should not have access to the entire network information.
There are preventative measures to take against the threat of ransomware. Act now to implement ones that would best benefit your business. The security analysts and forensic experts at WatchPoint can be your greatest ally.