Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
Mandiant's Charles Charmakal joins Dark Reading's Terry Sweeney at Dark Reading News Desk during RSA Conference to discuss the company's latest annual M-trends report.
Despite some success in limiting damage from Hive, there's no time to relax security vigilance.
A study found that ransomware threats are viewed as having the lowest overall perceived likelihood of attack on the edge.
Organizations need to remain vigilant and not take the decline as reason to cut back their cybersecurity strategies.