Ransomware has become a significant threat to all enterprises, irrespective of size, industry, or type. Cybersecurity teams of businesses find it difficult to maintain the cybersecurity posture even while having the best strategies and tech stack implemented.
Even though businesses might have effective threat detection and mitigation tools implemented, they might out miss out on some hidden threats in the business network. Cybercriminals today have become very sophisticated and have enhanced their capabilities to infiltrate the business networks they aim to accomplish their malicious goals. CISOs should consider designing and implementing an effective multi-layer security strategy that includes file encryption, data loss prevention software (DLP), anti-malware, personal firewall, and more. SecOps teams secure all the endpoints in the business network and IT infrastructure against increasing cyber-attacks. Even large enterprises have been a victim of ransomware attacks despite having the expertise, tools, and capabilities to ensure a secure business network. Ransomware has become an inevitable threat that businesses cannot avoid.
CISOs need to design effective ransomware recovery plans to reduce the impact of a ransomware attack:
Implement dedicated backups for high-value services
CSOs need to ensure that they have efficient, dedicated data backups for their high-value IT services. There are multiple vendors that offer dedicated backup services, which are critical to business operations. Enterprises that Have a dedicated backup solution integrated into the IT infrastructure to ensure that they can immediately and easily recover in the event of a ransomware attack.
Also Read: Ransomware and Phishing Needs to be at the Top of the C-Suite’s Security Concerns
Do not pay the ransom money
One of the crucial aspects that CISOs need to consider is whether to pay the ransom or know to get access or data back.
Cybersecurity business leaders should not pay the ransom unless they have no other data copies stored on any other server. Organizations that do not have their data backup need to compare the data loss cost and the ransom amount demanded by the cybercriminals to make the right decision. The significant reason why enterprises should not pay the demanded ransom is that they are dealing with cyber criminals who do not guarantee that even if businesses pay the ransom, they will recover the data back. A recent Sophos survey titled “The State of Ransomware 2022” suggests that only 4% of those organizations that paid the ransom got their entire data back in 2021; the number has gone down from 8% in 2020.
Paying ransom strengthens the attackers and weakens the organization. Because businesses that end up paying the ransom amount encourage other criminals to accomplish a full-blown cyber-attack, enterprises that pay a ransom are doubling the cost of dealing with a ransomware attack. Even after paying the ransom amount and businesses get their data back, the malware might still exist on the servers. In this case, SecOps teams will have to thoroughly clean them, which adds to the recovery amount. Moreover, cash flow disruption because of the downtime and new device costs will add to the ransomware recovery cost.
Report the ransomware attack
Once businesses stabilize from the impacts of ransomware attacks, they should report the attack’s magnitude, vector patterns, and other essential information to make other businesses aware of recent threats and their impact. Spreading awareness about the attacks and how they choose targets will help other businesses from falling victim to attack.
Also Read: A Data Privacy Day 2023 Playbook: Strategies to Improve Data Privacy
Cleanse the entire system thoroughly
One of the first challenges is that SecOps teams cannot be sure that anyone other than the attacker will be able to completely eliminate the ransomware from the system. There are a few software solutions available in the cybersecurity marketplace that claim; they are able to eliminate ransomware from entire systems on the business network. Hence, it is crucial for businesses to clean the entire system before they are utilized again.
CISOs can consider the above-mentioned strategies to recover from the ransomware attacks to minimize the impact.
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