Securing Your Endpoint in the Age of Ransomware Attacks

Last year we saw two high-profile ransomware attacks strike within a few weeks of each other, affecting more than a quarter million machines worldwide and causing major disruptions. With the adoption of the Eurocard/Mastercard/Visa payment standard increasing, credit card fraud has seen a sharp decline and that seems to be one of the main reasons for criminals to turn to ransomware attacks as they perceive it as relatively low risk and easy way to make quick money.

Ransomware: A Quick Look

Ransomware is frequently divided into two different categories: Crypto and Locker. Crypto Ransomware encrypts the target’s files and data using different cryptography methods and a demand for a ransom is sent out to the victim to get their files and data decrypted. Locker Ransomware does not encrypt the target’s files or data but uses scare tactics to force payment. It uses the fear of law enforcement to state that the computer has been locked down due to some sort of crime committed (like pirating on copyrighted material or child pornography etc.) and demands the victim to pay a fine to escape criminal charges or prison sentence. In both these kinds of attacks, the result is the same; the systems are locked out and operations/business is hindered and it affects big and small businesses alike.

Read More: New breeds of ransomware: Who’s at risk?

Endpoint Security to Fight Ransomware

With the cybercriminals bringing in more sophistication in their ransomware attacks, it is pertinent for companies to recognize and implement endpoint security to protect their assets and networks from these ransomware attacks. Ransomware could enter your networks or systems through different entry points. While knowing how to battle back if your organization is assaulted by ransomware is important, finding a way to limit the chances that your organization succumbs to ransomware is similarly essential. Preventing ransomware assaults, in any case, can spare your business financial losses due to operations failure, loss of critical data, etc. Some of the ways of securing your endpoints are listed below:

• Ensure that an up-to-date, powerful antivirus capable of blocking access to compromised websites and preventing ransomware from getting downloaded is installed across all endpoints within the organization.
• Most of the software vendors release security patches for their software from time to time and applying all these patches as soon as they are released would help in protecting the systems.
• Put in place a resilient backup plan including offsite storage and test the integrity of the saved data through consistent testing.
• Confine administrative rights on endpoints to authorized employees and restrict the access of employees to only that data and applications which they need for their work.
• A considerable lot of such attacks could be averted by patching regularly exploited 3rd party software, like Flash and Adobe.
• Scanning all incoming emails, blocking or quarantining any suspicious mail and filtering out executable files from attachments are other ways to keep the ransomware out.
• Enabling an effective Unified Threat Management with intrusion detection and prevention, website filtering to block access to known malicious sites/content, and another layer of antivirus on the edge devices such as a firewall can keep these attacks at bay.

A comprehensive protection for your endpoints is the need of the hour and Seqrite Endpoint Security (EPS) is one such product.

• Seqrite EPS identifies and blocks a ransomware threat using behavior-based detection technology.
• The data backup feature of this product fortifies the security provided by backing up the organization’s data into a secured location that could be used to recover files in case of a ransomware attack.
• It provides advanced endpoint protection through the antivirus, intrusion prevention and firewall all built into one product.
• Remote deployment and update of the antivirus on all configured systems ensure that the latest security patch is available on all endpoints.

With no distinct end in sight, we will continue to encounter these kinds of attacks. A multi-layered protection at different levels of your systems such as the solutions provided by Seqrite would help in tightening up the security belt and locking down your systems against such threats in order to shield that one critical thing on these devices: the DATA!

As an IT security partner for your business, Seqrite provides comprehensive security from advanced cyber threats. To know more