Ransomware continues to be a major threat to businesses around the world. In the first quarter of 2019 alone, ransomware attacks increased by 195%. And hackers don’t only target large enterprise corporations, small and medium businesses are also common victims.
This type of cyberattack plants a malicious agent that scrambles a company’s data, or otherwise makes it unreadable, the only recourse the company has (if they don’t have a good data backup) is to pay the ransom the criminal demands and hope they make good on their promise to give them access back to their files.
As a top managed IT services provider on the Fresno area, Unity IT believes that solid data security practices and data backup policies are the best way to prevent ransomware attacks. We work with three powerful tools that work in concert to protect companies of all sizes from becoming a victim of ransomware.
Ransomware attacks cost companies $3.6 million in 2018.
How can you protect your company from a ransomware attack?
We’ll tell you all about Proofpoint, Sophos Intercept X, and Acronis Active Protection – three applications designed to fight this specific type of malware in three different ways.
Ransomware Defense Tactics
Desktops aren’t the only device that is susceptible to ransomware attacks, servers and mobile devices can also be impacted, meaning if often takes more than a single solution to be completely protected.
Hackers gain access to devices to plant ransomware in four key ways:
Phishing attacks
Click on a malicious website link
Botnet attack
Drive by download
To protect against ransomware, you need a full-bodied defense that includes protection in several areas of your technology infrastructure. Here are three tools that help you defend against ransomware on multiple fronts.
Proofpoint: Email Security
Engineered to stop phishing in its tracks, Proofpoint is an email protection tool with URL filtering. That means that the program can reveal hidden URLS embedded in emails to help protect users by alerting them to a potentially malicious link.
Their Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) can block and quarantine emails that are suspicious and have questionable attachments or links. This means that dangerous messages are kept out of user inboxes, greatly reducing the chance of an accidental click.
Over half of ransomware infiltrations are caused by human error.
The cloud-based sandbox environment ensures that malware and ransomware are kept safety away from your network and caught before they can wreak havoc on your data.
Sophos Intercept X: Endpoint Protection
Widening your net beyond email means protecting servers and other endpoints from malicious ransomware attacks. Sophos Intercept X utilizes deep learning and CryptoGuard technology to keep endpoints and servers protected from malicious malware and ransomware attacks.
Instead of just relying on known malware signatures, Intercept X analyzes behavior to stop ransomware that’s never been seen before, this ability makes it one of the most advanced anti-ransomware technologies on the market.
Some of the additional benefits of Intercept X include:
Malware cleanup
Synchronized security
Intuitive cloud-based console
Guided incident response
Acronis Active Protection: Data Protection
A third prong of this robust set of anti-ransomware technologies focuses on protection of the “gold” the hackers are trying to get to… your data.
Acronis Active Protection safeguards all data on your systems, including documents, media files, programs, backup files, and more. It helps ensure that no matter what might get through another defense, there is a sentry standing guard in front of your files, to keep them safe from being scrambled or encrypted.
This advanced anti-ransomware application watches patterns in how data files are being updated and changed. It separates the common behavior from the uncommon to detect hostile actions against files.
This pattern recognition technique allows the program to be a powerful detection against ransomware, even those variants that aren’t known yet. Blacklist and whitelist capability make it easy to whitelist certain programs to ensure there are no false positives.
Many companies rely on a data backup to keep them from having to pay a ransom should ransomware attack their network or devices. But attackers often go after the backup software itself. Acronis Active Protection defends against this move by protecting the backup of the Acronis application and backup file content from malicious scripts.
In the event that a ransomware gets through and begins to encrypt files, Acronis stops it in its tracks and is able to do recovery of any compromised files.
Three Watchful Ransomware Sentries
Between these three programs, you have your entire infrastructure covered:
Proofpoint stands guard over your email inboxes
Sophos Intercept X stands guard over your devices
Acronis Active Protection stands guard over your files
Learn More about Ransomware Protection
Would you like to learn more about these three powerful anti-ransomware tools designed to protect your company from all types of ransonware and other malicious threats? Unity IT can show you exactly how they work and how they’d integrate into systems you may already be using.
Schedule a free security assessment today! Call us at 559-297-1007 or reach out online.
