A recent report by Positive technologies mentioned ransomware attacks have reached massive levels. The report suggested that ransomware attacks are 69% of total cyberattacks including malware. There has been a sharp rise in 2021 from 12% to 20%. Other forms of attacks have reduced because businesses are becoming aware of cyberthreats and are taking precaution. More measures were taken during the pandemic. Companies are taking greater measures to secure network parameters and remote access systems.
If you think that attackers distributing malware pose a danger to Windows-based systems only, you’re living in the past. There is a strong trend of malware for attacks on Unix systems, virtualization tools, and orchestrators. Each day more and more companies, including bigger corporations, now use Unix-based software, and that is why attackers are turning their attention to these systems.
Ransomware attacks on retailers accounted for 95 percent of all attacks using malware. This is likely because previous attacks in this industry mostly targeted data, such as payment details, personal information, and user credentials.
Now, attackers pursue financial gains more directly through ransom demands. The volume of social engineering attacks targeting retail this year also increased.
A clear and widening gap exists between enterprise programs meant to deal with malwares and the ability of IT security teams to actually mitigate risk facing their organizations.
What enterprises can do to protect themselves against ransomware?
As security vulnerabilities proliferate across digital surfaces, it’s increasingly critical that all enterprise IT security stakeholders make meaningful changes to their cyber hygiene efforts. This should include prioritizing risk-based cybersecurity efforts, increasing collaboration between security and IT teams, updating vulnerability management tooling, and enhancing enterprise risk analytics, particularly in businesses with advanced cloud application programs.
Some more ways to protect yourself against ransomware?
- Employ a data backup and recovery plan for all critical information. Perform and test regular backups to limit the impact of data or system loss and to expedite the recovery process. Note that network-connected backups can also be affected by ransomware; critical backups should be isolated from the network for optimum protection.
- Keep your operating system and software up-to-date with the latest patches. Vulnerable applications and operating systems are the targets of most attacks. Ensuring these are patched with the latest updates greatly reduces the number of exploitable entry points available to an attacker.
- Maintain up-to-date anti-virus software, and scan all software downloaded from the internet prior to executing.
- Restrict users’ ability (permissions) to install and run unwanted software applications, and apply the principle of “Least Privilege” to all systems and services. Restricting these privileges may prevent malware from running or limit its capability to spread through the network.
- Avoid enabling macros from email attachments. If a user opens the attachment and enables macros, embedded code will execute the malware on the machine.
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