The profitability of deploying ransomware has led to an explosion of disastrous attacks on companies and institutions such as Boeing, Honda, Telefónica, San Francisco’s MTA, the UK’s National Health Service, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, and entire cities, such as Atlanta.
The unfortunate usual outcome of these attacks is that the ransomware is only removed once a bounty has indeed been paid (usually via hard to trace cryptocurrencies).
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Most victims of ransomware don’t report their attack for fear of hacker-led reprisals and/or stringent consumer data protection laws that punish data loss. However, it is believed yearly ransomware attacks reached a frightening 151.9 million in 2019. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are at risk of ransomware just as often as larger entities and rarely have the budget to immediately pay for retrieval of their data.
An IDC report revealed that in addition to paying ransoms, which can reach into the millions, victims of ransomware face on average a cost of $250,000 per hour of downtime.
Earlier in the month, a Czech hospital suffered a debilitating ransomware attack that forced a complete IT shutdown, leading to a cancellation of all surgeries.
While hospitals and as health research institutions grappling with the COVID-19 outbreak, unfortunately, continue to face cyberattacks, and cybercriminals take advantage of people working from home – now is a crucial time to protect yourself and your business from ransomware. The solutions are out there – they are available. Including:
1. Active Cypher’s Ransom Data Guard
Active Cypher’s Ransom Data Guard utilizes a combination of Active Cypher’s proprietary encryption orchestration, smart AI, and advanced endpoint protection. Ransom Data Guard effectively shields clients from all permutations of ransomware attacks like WannaCry, RobbinHood, TeslaCrypt, Locky, Petya, Hidden Tear, Bad Rabbit, Gandcrab, Rakhni, Sodinokibi, and Rannoh.
Dan Gleason, Active Cypher’s CTO and Founder, says “The idea that ransomware was such an unstoppable risk kept us up at night. We couldn’t accept that there was no solution to repel these types of attacks and ensure business continuity.”
2. FireEye
Describing itself as the “total ransomware solution”, FireEye offers email, network, and endpoint security.
With its enhanced email security, FireEye can stop attacks before they can even occur with minimal business lag, its dynamic threat intelligence updates its database with malware trends and new ransomware campaigns every 60 minutes to ensure that its always ready to protect you from the latest cybercriminal activity.
3. Mimecast
Mimecast is an all-in-one service for ransomware protection. It boasts targetted protection against the most common techniques used by cybercriminals to initiate ransomware attacks.
The solution scans all inbound and archived emails for suspicious or malicious links, instantly blocking access until the sites have been considered safe. It also preemptively opens all attachments in a virtual sandbox for scanning and cleaning to rid them of any sneaking malware code.
Finally, Mimecast can protect your business from social-engineering attacks – suspicious emails can be rejected, quarantined or tagged with a warning for user review.
Edited by Luis Monzon
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