NEXT Generation Technology Support
October 2018
HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU NEVER FALL VICTIM TO RANSOMWARE CELEBRATIONS: BIRTHDAYS AND NEW HIRES CYBERSECURITY IS NOW A MUST-HAVE DEPARTMENT IN YOUR ORGANIZATION
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How To Make Sure You Never Fall Victim To Ransomware LATE LAST MARCH, THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF ATLANTA WAS BROUGHT TO ITS KNEES. MORE THAN A THIRD OF 424 PROGRAMS USED NEARLY EVERY DAY BY CITY OFFICIALS OF ALL TYPES, INCLUDING EVERYONE FROM POLICE OFFICERS TO TRASH COLLECTORS TO WATER MANAGEMENT EMPLOYEES, WERE KNOCKED OUT OF COMMISSION. WHAT’S WORSE, CLOSE TO 30% OF THESE PROGRAMS WERE CONSIDERED “MISSION CRITICAL,” ACCORDING TO ATLANTA’S INFORMATION MANAGEMENT HEAD, DAPHNE RACKLEY.
The culprit wasn’t some horrific natural disaster or
If you’re a business owner, these numbers should serve as a
mechanical collapse; it was a small package of code called
wake-up call. It’s very simple: in 2018, lax, underfunded
SAMSAM, a virus that managed to penetrate the networks
cyber security will not cut it. When hackers are ganging up
of a $371 billion city economy and wreak havoc on its
on city governments like villains in an action movie, that’s
systems. After the malicious software wormed its way into
your cue to batten down the hatches and protect your
the network, locking hundreds of city employees out of their
livelihood.
computers, hackers demanded a $50,000 Bitcoin ransom to release their grip on the data. While officials remain quiet about the entry point of SAMSAM or their response to the ransom, within two weeks of the attack, total recovery costs
The question is, how? When ransomware is so abundant and pernicious, what’s the best way to keep it from swallowing your organization whole?
already exceeded $2.6 million, and Rackley estimates they’ll climb at least another $9.5 million over the coming year.
1. BACK UP YOUR STUFF
It’s a disturbing cautionary tale not only for other city
If you’ve ever talked to anyone with even the slightest bit of
governments, but for organizations of all sizes with assets to protect. Atlanta wasn’t the only entity to buckle under the siege of SAMSAM. According to a report from security software firm Sophos, SAMSAM has snatched almost $6 million since 2015, casting a wide net over more than 233 victims of all types. And, of course, SAMSAM is far from the only ransomware that can bring calamity to an organization.
IT knowledge, you’ve probably heard how vital it is that you regularly back up everything in your system, but it’s true. If you don’t have a real-time or file-sync backup strategy, one that will actually allow you to roll back everything in your network to before the infection happened, then once ransomware hits and encrypts your files, you’re basically sunk. Preferably, you’ll maintain several different copies of backup files in multiple locations, on different media that malware can’t spread to from your primary network. Then, if
CELEBRATIONS
it breaches your defenses, you can pinpoint the malware, delete it, then restore your network to a pre-virus state, drastically minimizing the damage and totally circumventing paying out a hefty ransom.
Martin Blair October 16th - Happy Birthday!
2. GET EDUCATED We’ve written before that the biggest security flaw to your business isn’t that free, outdated antivirus you’ve installed, but the hapless employees who sit down at their workstations each day. Ransomware can take on some extremely tricky forms to hoodwink its way into your network, but if your team can easily recognize social engineering strategies, shady clickbait links and the dangers of unvetted attachments, it will be much, much more difficult for ransomware to find a foothold. These are by far the most common ways that malware finds its way in.
3. LOCK IT DOWN
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By whitelisting applications, keeping everything updated with the latest patches and restricting administrative privileges for most users, you can drastically reduce the risk and impact of ransomware. But it’s difficult to do this without an entire team on the case day by day. That’s where a managed services provider becomes essential, proactively managing your network to plug up any security holes long before hackers can sniff them out. The bad news is that ransomware is everywhere. The good news is that with a few fairly simple steps, you can secure your business against the large majority of threats.
NEW HIRES Ryan O’Connor
Cybersecurity is now a MUST have department in your organization
MORE than ONE in every FOUR users is susceptible to
If your username or password was already EXPOSED on the
clicking on a phishing email potentially creating any of the
Dark Web?
below scenarios (once they are properly educated – this number falls to below 3%). These scenarios are ACTUALLY happening - we are unfortunately seeing them unfold EVERY WEEK. These "bad guys" are really smart criminals trying to coerce your team members into giving up credentials, access, data, or worse - company funds. If they got into your EMAIL - what DATA would they have? Private or personal info? Banking or payroll information? What if they had access to other team members email? Like financial, payroll, engineering departments - what data and access might they have then? What if they were posing to you as your clients and vendors? If they misguided your accounting people - might they be able to steal THOUSANDS of dollars via wire transfer? Or could it be worse than tens of thousands? All while seeming like every day usual course of business with clients and vendors. What if they DELETED everything in your email inbox? If they got to your CONTACTS - what mayhem could ensue? How much damage would they do to your clients or colleagues? If they got into any other systems with the SAME password? Your bank? Your VPN? Your financial software?
If any one of these things happened to your organization, what would the negative impact be? Or could it very well TOPPLE your organization? EVERY ONE of us needs to get serious about this. Educate your people and take it seriously. We have NEW solutions that will PROTECT from a few different angles: We need to EDUCATE our teams to IDENTIFY and avoid these situations. We need to better control ACCESS to email and other critical apps because simple password security is no longer sufficient. We need to better prevent phishing and malicious emails from getting in to our organizations. We need to ensure that email accounts have the same BACKUP levels that our servers and data do. We need to MONITOR for any data and credential leaks on the dark web. Reach out to us to hear more.