Managing Cyber Risks: How to Minimize the Risk of A Ransomware Attack

Every organization, regardless of what you do, is at risk for a ransomware attack. This blog will give you some insight into best practices to minimize the risk of a successful attack.

It’s important, now more than ever before, for organizations to have an awareness of the emerging cyber threats that this type of attack holds. A successful ransomware attack can have a direct effect on an organization’s financial stability, day-to-day operations, and overall reputation.

When an organization addresses its preparedness against ransomware, it effectively lowers the risk of a successful attack. No organization can function without access to its server’s data and with ransomware on its system, an organization is effectively shut down.

When it comes to protecting against ransomware, it is best to be proactive, educate your employees, and set organization-wide policies and procedures, hopefully preventing the threat before it arrives. In a two-part webinar series, the United States Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF) dives deeper into the overview of what ransomware is, why you should be concerned, and steps you can take to prevent it. To learn more about details within the webinar series, click here.

Organizations should look to:

1. Perform a thorough social engineering campaign. Social engineering campaigns often use phishing tactics to determine how security-aware employees are.
2. Install, implement, and configure comprehensive endpoint security.  I.e. antivirus, anti-malware, and anti-ransomware software coupled with next-generation firewalls and intrusion detection technology; these systems make it more difficult for cybercriminals to launch a successful attack.
3. Automatic patching and software updates. Initiate a critical security routine that needs to be established and monitored for completeness.
4. Email filtering. Part of a layered defense, this application provides companies with the ability to define and block email types, IP addresses, and locations from bad actors.
5. Backup your data on a daily basis. All organizations are recommended to backup their mission-critical data on a regular basis, and keep 1 copy securely stored off-line. 

This 2-minute video titled How to Minimize the Risk of A Ransomware Attack features JANUS’ COO, Lyle Liberman, and was produced in conjunction with Kaplan e-Learning. The video interview provides highlights on preventing cyber attacks and recommends cyber security awareness training for all company employees.

CONTACT JANUS ASSOCIATES 

Since 1988, JANUS has helped hundreds of government agencies, commercial entities, educational institutions, and not-for-profits protect their infrastructures, data, clients, and employees, and we have the references and testimonials to prove these claims. Our decade-long experience has allowed us to achieve deep expertise in every sector and specialty that exists, including yours. 

Contact Chris Kniffin, Corporate Director, to learn more about how a team of affordable professionals can help you secure your organization.