How vulnerable are your traditional antivirus systems and how you can determine a course of action to guarantee your business is protected against a ransomware attack?
It has become common place to see cyber crime making the headlines: globally banks, hospitals and businesses continue to be heavily affected.
"Statistics in South Africa remain vague as organisations are reluctant to reveal the extent to which they have been targeted by ransomware," Panda Security told Fin24 in April this year.
The overall impact of ransomware is difficult to conceptualise as many companies opt not to report the attack but rather to pay the ransom and get their files unlocked.
Ransomware, unlike other malware, has a direct financial consequence. Cyber criminals encrypt data on a device and then demand payment either in the form of bitcoins or EFTs.
According to the Panda Security's Q2 report for 2016, 18 million new malware samples were detected in the quarter, with an average of 200 000 new threats detected daily, and this is only expected to increase.
This is indicative of the threats South Africans face daily from ransomware, advanced persistent threats (APTs) and zero-day attacks, and how imperative it is to take a more proactive approach to protecting valuable business and personal data.
To protect themselves against ransomware, it is recommended that organisations ensure their company data is backed up, and they become vigilant of potentially harmful e-mail attachments and the like.
Ransomware has become the most profitable malware type in history, according to a Cisco report.
Alongside the average daily 200 000 ransomware attacks, the majority of other attacks have led to the theft of personal information and log-in credentials. In 2015, the United States Department of Justice publicised that the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) received 2 500 complaints of ransomware attacks. A total ransom of $24 million was paid by these ransomware victims. Ransomware is a global phenomenon. Taking into account the total ransom payment in this example and the widespread growth of the malware, we can infer that ransomware costs billions of dollars every year, says the Panda report.
To protect against such attacks enterprises need to remain vigilant, they require more visibility of their networks and should work towards increasing and improving activities such as patching and upgrading their legacy security systems capabilities.
This is sound advice, but it does not cut to the core of the problem. Ransomware and APTs are able to bypass conventional antivirus software and penetrate a network. Conventional antivirus solutions are no match for the growing threat.
In response to the problem, Panda has developed a solution - Adaptive Defence, a service that accurately classifies all running applications and allows only legitimate programmes to run. This solution is able to mitigate these threats by leveraging a new security model that provides full visibility of goodware and malware. It is a cloud-based solution that delivers a proactive approach to protection in the current threat environment and falls into a new category of security referred to as endpoint detection and response (EDR). This means that users are protected from new age threats such as ransomware attacks as well as APTs and zero-day attacks. Adaptive Defence has proven effective for organisations across various industries, mitigating the threat of losing high sensitive data and millions of rand in ransom money.
Jeremy Matthews, country manager, Panda Security in association with ITWeb will present a free one-hour Webinar on: Defending against RANSOMWARE, 12 October 2016.
Answers to the following critical questions will be explained:
* Can I detect ransomware;
* Can I prevent it; and
* Which measures do I need to put in place to mitigate against it or minimise the risk?
Defending against ransomware Webinar 12 October 2016
Take this exclusive opportunity to register, free of charge, for the Defending against ransomware Webinar on the morning of Wednesday, 12 October 2016. In just over an hour you will gain insight into how you can effectively defend your network against ransomware, determine if your legacy antivirus solution can stop a ransomware attack, plus much more.
Register now for this free-to-attend Webinar.
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