3 Tips for Protecting your Company Against Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware has been on a rise this year and is expected to rise even more in the coming years. Ransomware damages are expected to cost $11.5 billion in 2019 and about $20 billion by 2021. The good news, however, is that there are relatively easy things any company can do to protect themselves from an attack and also recover from an attack if an attack happens to strike.

Implement The 3-2-1 Backup Strategy

One of the simplest and cost-effective things a company can do to protect themselves against ransomware attacks is to implement a cloud backup a strategy which is reliable and effective. This is where the 3-2-1 strategy comes in and since it is so effective, it is widely used.

The 3-2-1 strategy states that you should have three copies of data, stored on two different types of storage media and one of those copies should be stored offsite.

To further clarify this, it simply means that the three copies should be your production copy and the other two should be backup copies. The two backup copies should be on different types of media such as a separate network-attached storage (NAS) device and finally, one of those copies should be at an offsite location or in the cloud. Backup to Azure can be used for cloud backups.

Stay Updated on Security Patches

One of the most primary targets for hackers are operating systems, software, and device firmware. If these are not updated with the latest security patches, hackers figure out and take advantage of the vulnerabilities in the systems and this can help them to launch an attack, so keeping them updated with the latest security patch is very important.

Regularly check for updates and whenever an update comes, install it immediately. If this seems like a lot of work, security updates can be automated. Simply allow updates to be updated automatically whenever a new update comes and it will install on its own.

Educate Employees

Hackers often launch attacks through phishing emails and if employees are not trained well enough to distinguish between a phishing email and a regular one, they might fall prey to these scams.

Phishing emails usually have, grammatical mistakes, urgency inclined towards making you do or click something, an attractive offer about a product or a notice stating that something has happened to your bank or apple account but these emails usually have an unauthentic domain name. Backup disaster recovery solution techniques must be adopted to save your data from disasters.

Conclusion

Ransomware is a hot topic and will continue spreading the heat in 2020. Making sure that your company is protected against ransomware has become a topic priority nowadays. Cloud backups, Veeam backup to Azure and the above tips can help greatly to achieve it.

A data breach leaks personal data of citizens of Ecuador

Ecuador recently has been hit by a major database breach and personal information of citizens has been leaked. It includes names, national ID card numbers, date of birth, home address and financial records. This is sensitive information and it going to the wrong hands can be very damaging for each citizen.

The database contained around 20.8 million people, which includes current as well as deceased citizens. This caused worry and panic for the citizens as their private information was not secure anymore. They must have disaster recovery backups to recover these problems. 

The breach was initially discovered by security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar. A server, called Elasticsearch was discovered and was owned by a private company called Novaestrat.

Many notable individuals were also affected, including the President of Ecuador which forced the country to act immediately and smartly.

Apart from Novaestrat, the information was gathered through the country’s civil registry. The researchers were not able to reach the former registrar after several tries and were forced to reach out to the Ecuador CERT team (Computer Emergency Response Team). Upon receiving the news, they immediately shut down the database till further notice.

It is unclear whether they were able to recover the citizen’s data or not but if they had a proper backup and disaster recovery plan they would have easily recovered their data without having to worry about it getting lost.

How can a backup help?

With threats and breaches so common these days it is essential to have a backup plan in place. This acts as an insurance for your data and helps in recovery if anything is to happen to it.

There are many vendors who offer cloud backup disaster recovery services and offer exceptional features in reasonable rates. With a high competition, it is really easy to find a suitable vendor which suits you and your data best.

The main advantage of having a cloud backup is the ability to restore all your data in the event of a cyber-attack or breach. This way users can recover their files and gain access to them remotely. Depending on your vendor, you can opt for encryption and other security features such as ransomware or breach detection. This way you would know beforehand if there is a breach attempt and will deal with it before it actually happens. StoneFly offers such solutions in the most efficient and affordable way.

Conclusion

Data breaches and cyber-attacks are very common and it is best to be prepared for them beforehand, instead of waiting for an attack or breach to happen. Having a cloud backup enables users to back up their data and be worry free about cyber-attacks.

A Massachusetts City dodges ransomware demand after attack

A major ransomware attack was recently targeted on a Massachusetts City, New Bedford. The attackers demanded more than $5 million. This is one of the highest ransomware demand ever reported. The city announced that they would instead try to restore their data through backups and will recover whatever is possible instead of paying the ransom. 

Therefore you must have a backup and disaster recovery mechanism to be on the safer end.

If they had decided to pay the ransom, then this would have been the largest ransom money ever payed by anyone.

How it happened?

The MIS staff identified a computer virus attack on 5^th July 2019. It was a few later fully identified a ransomware attack. It happened in the early hours, before the employees began their day shift.

The staff has reported said that they have recovered most of the systems affected by the attack and daily services were not disrupted either because of the attack.

Negotiations

It is reported that the city officials made several attempts to negotiate the $5.3 million demand with the attackers but they did not accept. The last offer made by the officials was $400,000 which was also rejected by the attackers. To their dismay, the city officials decided to restore their systems manually without waiting or asking for the decryption key.

According to reports, about 4 percent of systems (158 computers to be exact) were affected by the attack. This is due to the fact that the staff immediately disconcerted the servers and shut down the systems before the attack could spread. This smart planning and decision making helped them to protect themselves from further damage.

It is unclear whether the city was able to fully recover all the data and systems affected but they reported that they were working on it and recovered their data and systems to some extent. This is a win for the tech community as it sends a message that there are other ways to deal with the problem, rather than paying ransom and giving in to these cyber thugs.

Even though the city saved themselves from paying the ransom they were still not able to fully recover all their data which can be critical as many companies and organizations have mission critical data and cannot afford to lose even 1% of it. This is where a backup and disaster recovery plan comes in.

Backup & Recovery Plan

If the city had a proper Cloud Backup and recovery plan in place they would have not worried about their data getting lost and wouldn’t have wasted time with negotiating with the attackers and risking to pay ransom to them. If they had a recovery plan they would have easily recovered their data in a matter of minutes. Veeam backup to azure can be used to backup your data.

There are many vendors who offers such services (for e,g, StoneFly’s DR365 & DR365V) and setting up a backup and recovery plan is as easy as ever.

Conclusion

Massachusetts City saved themselves from paying the largest amount of ransom ever demanded but on doing so they gambled highly with their data. The only safe and reliable way is to setup a backup & recovery plan and be prepared beforehand.