What Can Companies Do to Prevent Ransomware Attacks?

All businesses–from small, family-owned to multinational corporations–can be targets of ransomware attacks. According to the National Cybersecurity Alliance, ransomware attacks impacted 65,000 U.S. organizations in 2020.

Global costs of ransomware attacks totaled $20 billion in 2021. Companies are asking what they can do to protect themselves, and if ransomware protection as a service is the right solution for them.

What Is Ransomware and How Can It Be Prevented?

Ransomware attacks hold your company’s data hostage until you pay to have access returned or prevent the attacker from sharing sensitive information.

So how does a ransomware attack work? The attacker sends a link containing malware, usually through an email or social media message. If one of your employees opens the link, it gives the malware access to your file system, and it encrypts your data. Once encrypted, you lose access to your data, and the attacker can share it with whoever they want.

What’s the Impact of a Ransomware Attack?

The average cost of a ransomware attack is $3.8 million . Not only do companies have to pay the ransom to regain access to their data, but they can also suffer a loss in productivity during the attack. Furthermore, if an attacker exposes sensitive information like health records or financial information, it can shatter trust in that company.

With the cost of an attack being so high, do companies survive ransomware attacks? Sixty percent of small and mid-sized businesses don’t. While recovery is possible, it’s best to have a protection plan in place.

Can You Stop a Ransomware Attack?

Being targeted by a ransomware attack is not a matter of if, but when. While it is possible to reduce the risks of a cybersecurity breach on your own, you can get the best results by working with a company like InterVision that specializes in Ransomware Protection as a Service™ (RPaaS™).

Can My Antivirus Detect Ransomware?

Yes and no. The issue with most antivirus software is that it works to stop threats that it recognizes, but it is often unable to detect and stop newer threats.

Why Is Ransomware Not Detected by My Antivirus Software?

Antivirus software that comes with your operating system, such as Windows 10, has slower update times that have trouble keeping up with how quickly ransomware changes. Because of this, these programs don’t even know what they’re supposed to be preventing by the time ransomware takes hold of your files.

While antivirus software is an essential component of your overall cybersecurity plan, it works best when paired with malware protection software that is capable of real-time threat detection.

Ransomware Incident Response Playbook

Cybersecurity threats may seem daunting if you’re not an IT specialist, but you can start strengthening your protection against ransomware. The first step is understanding your current risk by following this ransomware protection checklist:

The Basics:

Does my operating system come with antivirus software? Is it activated?
Are my employees trained to identify and avoid suspicious emails, social media messages, and websites that may contain harmful links?

Some companies can achieve the basics on their own. However, when it comes to the kind of prevention and recovery plans that bring peace of mind, working with professionals, like the team at InterVision, yields the best results.

Prevention:

Do we use security information and event management (SIEM) technology to identify and analyze threats in real-time?
Do we limit access to sensitive information so if malware gains access to some of our files it doesn’t gain access to all of them?
Are our private messages and sensitive information encrypted to make it harder for ransomware to gain access?

Recovery:

Do we use disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) to back up our files to a third-party location so we can still function even during a ransomware attack?

If your ransomware prevention plan doesn’t check all of these boxes, then InterVision’s RPaaS could be what you need to keep your data protected.

What Do Ransomware Protection Companies Do?

A good ransomware protection company combines prevention and recovery methods to protect your business from costly ransomware attacks. At InterVision, we employ a holistic approach to mitigate risks from all angles.

InterVision takes a comprehensive approach to prevent, detect and recover your business from a ransomware attack. From the Security Operations as a Service (SOaaS) service that monitors and warns of threat activity to stop attacks before they happen, to ongoing advisory and assistance to support the security processes and risk mitigation via a virtual CISO (vCISO) to full managed replication and recovery processes from service disruption, InterVision’s RPaaS solution covers everything. And then some.