Johannesburg, 07 Dec 2016
Businesses large and small are under constant pressure to perform and deliver value and are very often faced with the reality of unplanned downtime. This downtime can hurt the business from lost revenue to reputation damage to lost productivity. The increasingly aggressive brutal cyber-attacks such as ransomware result in huge losses of data, time and resources. Loss of access to critical files, followed by a demand for payment can cause massive disruption to an organisation's productivity.
Most organisations will have some form of protection in the form of firewalls and anti-virus software. However, there are still security holes which need to be addressed. In the Sophos whitepaper entitled How to Stay Protected Against Ransomware, it identifies some security holes at affected companies:
* Inadequate backup strategy (no real-time backups, backups not offline/off-site).
* Updates/patches for operating system and applications are not implemented swiftly enough.
* Dangerous user/rights permissions (users work as administrators and/or have more file rights on network drives than necessary for their tasks).
* Lack of user security training ("Which documents may I open and from whom?", "What is the procedure if a document looks malicious", "How do I recognise a phishing e-mail?").
* Security systems (virus scanners, firewalls, IPS, e-mail/web gateways) are not implemented or are not configured correctly. Inadequate network segmentation can also be included here (servers and work stations in the same network).
* Lack of IT security knowledge (.exe files may be blocked in e-mails but not Office macros or other active content).
* Conflicting priorities ("We know that this method is not secure but our people have to work...").
Daniel Gombe, CEO of Sochin Technologies, a Sophos partner, believes that staying protected against these cyber-attacks is no longer just about having the latest security solution but rather what is required is a more holistic view on your entire IT ecosystem including but not limited to, regular training for employees. Very often, says Gombe, infections rely on persuading the user to open an attachment and or enable, knowingly or unknowingly, macros in documents. Once that is done, the effect is like that of opening Pandora's box. The perpetrators play on human curiosity.
To stay protected and secure against ransomware your solution needs to be effective at every stage of an attack (www.sophos.com). Endpoints must be secured by the unique CryptoGuard technology, available in Sophos Intercept X, which stops ransomware in its tracks by detecting and stopping ransomware from encrypting your files.
Sophos Intercept X deploys a range of innovative next-gen technologies to block all kinds of advanced attacks. It gives you comprehensive protection from ransomware, rootkits, zero-day vulnerabilities, malicious traffic, and everything in-between.
For a free security assessment for your company, contact Sochin Technologies, +2711 675 7318 or sales@soit.co.za, and book.
Share