How Businesses Can Fight Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks continue to disrupt industries ranging from healthcare to higher education. On September 7 and 8, Howard University was forced to cancel online and hybrid undergraduate classes when the university’s network was compromised by a crippling ransomware attack. Several hospitals have experienced the unfathomable: even as they fight a resurgence of Covid-19, malicious parties are attacking their data networks with disruptive ransomware attacks. (It is likely that perpetrators are capitalizing on hospitals being distracted by the demands of fighting the pandemic.) Within the past 12 months, 84 percent of organizations have reported a ransomware or phishing attack, and the problem is only getting to worsen with the re-emergence of a notorious Russian cybercriminal organization. Businesses need to be vigilant, which includes taking some steps to protect themselves. 

What Businesses Should Do 

The recently published Cybersecurity and the C-Suite report shares several steps that businesses can take to fight ransomware attacks.  

First off, everyone on the executive leadership team needs to take ownership of the problem. Ransomware is more than an information technology security problem. It’s a threat to the entire company. The C-suite first needs to make sure they understand how ransomware happens and how the ransomware industry is evolving. Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated in their use of schemes such as phishing emails that trick employees into allowing a hacker access to a company’s information security network. Most ransomware attacks are initiated by spam and phishing emails, and many more occur because of poor cyber security training and weak passwords, according to Tech Republic. 

This problem is exacerbated by our increasingly distracted society. Employees working at home or in the office too easily let their guard down because they are multitasking. This is one reason why the C-suite needs to take ownership of this problem and implement better employee training. It’s important that the C-suite institute a mandatory training program that employees and contractors must take in order to understand the threats and how to guard against them. For instance, all your employees and contractors know that they must understand some of these safeguards: 

• Never click on unsafe links – and understand how to spot a suspicious link disguised as a legitimate email. 
• Avoid disclosing personal information – such as calls, text messages, or emails from an untrusted source requesting personal information. 
• Do not open suspicious email attachments, and to make sure the email can be trusted, pay attention to details such as the email address of the sender to see if it matches the name of the sender. 
• Never use unknown USB sticks. 
• Keep programs and operating systems up to date.  
• Never download software or media files from unknown sites.  
• Use VPN services on public Wi-Fi networks. Employees may not realize it, but when they use a public Wi-Fi network, their computers are more vulnerable to attacks. This risk increases as more employees work remotely.  

In addition, we recommend that you train employees at least annually because hackers are constantly developing new tools to breach your security.  

Businesses can and should take many more steps besides educating their employees. They can indeed decrease the likelihood of being attacked by taking security precautions of their own (and working with their technology provider accordingly). For instance, your chief information security officer needs to ensure that your company stays abreast of the latest security updates and patches, at a minimum. For more insight, we recommend reviewing “Ransomware Protection: How to Keep Your Data Safe in 2021,” from Kapersky. Finally, we cannot stress enough: don’t pay ransoms. 

Bottom line: businesses need to plan for an attack now. Our Cybersecurity and the C- Suite report discusses ransomware in context of cybercrimes and how businesses can fight them. Download a copy here.  

Contact IDX 

The IDX on-demand hosting platform is built from the ground up with security and data protection by design. Our cyber threat prevention system offers complete DDoS protection and malicious traffic analysis and prevention and underpins every website we build. Combined with the atomized modular architecture of the Connect.ID CMS platform, we can deploy beautiful designed and highly performant websites with as little as two weeks from ideation to build. Contact us to learn how we can protect you.