In 2020, ransomware attacks increased by 150% with an average demand of $312,000. Still, 47% of organizations are unprepared to handle a cybersecurity breach, whether having insufficient measures in place or not testing their response effectiveness.
Ransomware attacks can take hold of your business in a number of ways. One of the most common is by sending employees a link in an email or social media message. When the link is opened, malware infiltrates your files, encrypts your data, and allows the attacker to view your sensitive information. The attacker then demands a ransom to return access to your information and threatens to sell sensitive customer data on the dark web. The end result is damage to your productivity, finances, and possibly, your reputation.
Partnering with a company that provides Ransomware Protection as a Service™ (RPaaS™) could be the solution for your business. Find out how strategic service providers, like InterVision, prepare your business to prevent and recover from ransomware attacks.
Can You Protect Against Ransomware?
Being the target of a ransomware attack is not a matter of if, but when. The good news is that you can still protect your business from the worst damages with a holistic approach that optimizes prevention and recovery. You may already have access to some basic tools. Not sure where to start? Ask us if your current protection is enough for your business and what you can do to better protect your data.
Best Free Ransomware Protection
If you are just starting to plan your cybersecurity, you may be looking for cheaper—or even free—options. Many operating systems, like Windows 10, come with antivirus software that tracks and detects threats.
How does Windows ransomware protection work? Like most antivirus programs, Windows keeps an ongoing database of viruses and ransomware. This allows the program to identify and block threats before they get a hold of your data.
So, what is the best antivirus for ransomware? Unfortunately, antivirus software alone isn’t enough to protect you from ransomware. While the programs that come with your operating system may be fine for personal use, they aren’t responsive enough to keep your business safe. This is because antivirus software doesn’t update frequently enough to keep up with rapidly changing ransomware, so your business could still be vulnerable to threats that your antivirus doesn’t know of yet.
Still, you should activate the antivirus that comes with your operating system, as it offers basic protection.
What Is the Best Protection Against Ransomware?
The best protection against ransomware isn’t any single program. Instead, an effective cybersecurity plan combines protection and recovery, so nothing gets left out. Here’s how you can get started protecting your data, finances, and reputation with these ransomware protection best practices:
First Steps: Evaluation
For many business owners, cybersecurity can seem like a foreign language. But, knowing your strengths and weaknesses is a powerful weapon against getting caught off-guard by attackers. Work with your IT department or consult a team of experts to see how you stand with the following:
Prevention
- Do we have any sort of antivirus and/or malware software activated? While these programs don’t offer total protection, they are still an effective way to reduce the risk of cyber attacks.
- Do we limit access points to sensitive information? The more access points your files have, the easier it is for malware to infiltrate them; only grant access to employees who need it.
- Are our employees trained to recognize, avoid, and report suspicious links? Whether they come in the form of email phishing links, social media messages, or website pop-ups, ransomware can be tough to identify. Ensure that your employees understand how to safely work online.
Recovery
- Do we keep backups of our data that’s necessary for the business to function? Without backups, productivity grinds to a halt when you’re hit by a ransomware attack, adding to the already detrimental costs.
Next Steps: Know Your Options
Now that you have an understanding of how your current protections stack up against the threats, what can you do to strengthen your response plan? Here are the tools that we count on:
Prevention
- Security information and event management technology (SIEM) works like an antivirus to detect and analyze threats—except it does it in real time, so ransomware developers aren’t outmaneuvering you.
Recovery
- Data Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) backs up your vital data to a third-party host, so if your database gets infiltrated, your backup is still safe. This keeps your business running during an attack and reduces the attacker’s leverage.
Protect Your Business: Partner with Experts
When it comes to the safety of your business, why take the risk? By partnering with cybersecurity experts, you can have peace of mind knowing that the best available technology is working for your protection.
InterVision: The Best Ransomware Protection for Business
Trust our over 25 years of experience to keep your business safe from rapidly evolving cyber threats. Here at InterVision, we take a holistic approach to ransomware detection, prevention and recovery.
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.
For ransomware protection as a service designed to keep your business resilient, contact us.
