Preventing a ransomware attack on the cloud – Security Strategy
Cybercrime has boomed in recent years, taking on complexity like any other well-executed IT project. As technology ramps up to help companies achieve peak performance and productivity, the same revolution also assists the disastrous impacts of cybercrime. Cybercriminals have access to low cost, highly sophisticated tools that have increased the frequency and impact of cyberattacks in recent years. A lack of security skills and investment leads to organizations falling behind when dealing with such attacks. Ransomware attacks are essentially like any other hostage situation; something valuable is taken away from you and returned for a price. Cloud resources, more often than not, could be protected by investing in IT and cloud security measures. Companies need to take proactive steps to predict and mitigate the threat of ransomware.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that by 2021, global ransomware damage costs will increase up to 20 Billion USD, a steep jump from 11.5. Billion USD in 2019. New Year’s Eve 2020 was marred by a ransomware attack on Travelex, taking down its websites across 30 countries. Foreign exchange transactions were chaotic worldwide for the company in January. The ransom was estimated to around $6M. The myth associated with ransomware is that the financial impacts are limited to the ransom amount. Still, it goes so much deeper than that; you incur the downtime costs that your business incurs during the period you do not have access to data. More often than not, the key that lets organizations access their data corrupts or erases at least some of the data.
Data recovery costs and customer dissatisfaction can deliver a major blow to the organization. There is no guarantee that the hacker will upload their end of the bargain on receiving the ransom amount. Ransomware can infect the cloud when an affected local device is synced to the cloud. Encrypted files spread corruption from the device to the cloud. An entire company’s cloud – sharing system can be brought down if such attacks persist and are not dealt with in time. Phishing attacks are another way where attackers can gain access to a user’s email account. These can cause damage by encrypting important email messages and spreading the malware to other email contacts. Recently, ransomware was being spread through COVID-19-themed phishing emails that exploit existing vulnerabilities or when users unknowingly visited an infected website.
As they say, “Prevention is better than cure.”
Our experts at United Private Cloud can help protect your cloud resources. We offer an unbiased risk assessment by assessing your infrastructure, application, data, and security posture to create a comprehensive risk analysis profile. We provide a compliance report by conducting a detailed analysis of your IT footprint to identify gaps that could prevent you from achieving compliance.
With our manual and tool-based penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, we proactively test and identify network vulnerabilities before hackers find them. We create a remediation and security planning roadmap by providing a prioritized, structured, and proactive plan for resolving risk and security vulnerabilities. Our experts offer proficient remediation by working side-by-side with your team to execute remediation efforts while sharing the responsibility for their successful delivery.
Visit the United Private Cloud’s website today to discover the right private cloud partner for your organization and avail of managed security services that provide comprehensive protection.
