YOUR DATA OR YOUR BUSINESS: RANSOMWARE EXPLAINED

This cyberattack scheme hasn't garnered nearly as much attention as the usual “break-in-and-steal-data-to-sell-on-the-Internet” type, but it can be even more debilitating.

Ransomware attacks have begun appearing in the last few years and its practitioners are so polished that in a few cases they even have mini-call centers to handle your payments and questions.

So what is ransomware? The business model is as old as the earliest kidnapping. Ransomware stops you from using your PC, files or programs. The attackers hold your data, software, or entire PC hostage until you pay them a ransom to get it back. Obviously, seeing that you are dealing with criminals, there isn't any guarantee you will ever get your data back just because you meet their demands.

The M.O. is pretty simple. You suddenly have no access to a program or file and then a screen appears announcing your files are encrypted and that you need to pay (usually in bitcoins) to regain access. There may even be a Doomsday-style clock counting down the time you have to pay or lose everything. Microsoft reports that some versions accuse you of having broken a law, and that you are being fined by a Federal agency, police force or other official enforcement office. Some versions use the FBI logo.

Interestingly, one of the more common “market segments” being targeted in the US has been public safety. Police department data is held hostage, and in many cases, they have given up and paid the ransom. They had little choice. They aren't the only ones. Within a week, a hospital in southern California also fell prey, as did one in Texas.

Ransomware can be especially insidious because backups may not offer complete protection against these criminals. Such new schemes illustrate why you need to be aware of the latest criminal activities in the cyber world, and make sure your data protection efforts are up to date.

Here are 5 steps you can take right now to protect yourself from ransomware:

1) Make sure you continue to keep your antivirus software up to date.

2) Train your employees to be aware. People remain the biggest source of security breaches. Employees unwittingly open malicious emails or go to corrupted sites and expose their employers’ networks and infrastructures to malicious software.

3) Backups are probably the most important method to restore your systems if you suffer a ransomware attack. Make sure that your backups are detached when the backup is not occurring. Otherwise, you risk that even backup files will be corrupted.

4) Keep all of your software programs updated. Software developers frequently patch vulnerabilities with new updates. These simple tips discussed work like the locks we put on our front doors. Just as you wouldn’t leave your home unlocked and invite a robbery, you shouldn’t leave your data vulnerable to an attack by miscreants. 

5) Use pop-up blockers. AdwCleaner is one. It not only blocks unwanted pop-ups but also protects against browser hijacks, malware and adware.

Why Small Medical Practices Struggle with HIPAA Compliance

View fullsize

Here are the channels hackers can use to break into your IT infrastructure

• Your website: Hackers have become very sophisticated in cyber attacks on websites. They can access specific information by targeting websites that have the information they are looking for. For example, if they want only financial information about their victims, they can use tools that will fish for the websites that carry that kind of information. Implementation of web-based applications has made it easier for cyber criminals to connect to your website data base. They are able to find the loopholes and hack into systems. They can then access your customer’s personal information, allowing them to steal from your clients by committing credit card and bank fraud. Or they can just sell your client’s info on the Internet.

• Your computers and servers: Your computers and servers are treasure-troves of information. By sending malware into your systems they can steal your admin passwords, and then login to your servers and other network devices. These hardware devices are the ultimate prize for cyber thieves because these devices not only hold important information about your clients, they also have all the information about your business and possibly about your vendors and associates. There is nothing about your business that these hackers don’t know. Imagine how devastating this attack can be.

• Mobile devices used by your employees: If you are one of those entities that allow their employees to use their mobile devices to conduct business, you have another security dimension to worry about. You don’t know how secure their mobile phones, iPads, laptops or tablets are. You don’t know how hard or easy their passwords are to crack. Breach of security into those devices will lead hackers right into your networks where they can steal data at will.

• Unsecure Wi-Fi network: Most businesses keep their Wi-Fi networks well protected, but unsecured Wi-Fi is an open invitation to cyber criminals. If your Wi-Fi network is not secure, hackers are one step closer to breaking into your systems without even trying.

• Your PoS systems: PoS systems are the prime targets for hackers who want to commit financial fraud. Cyber thieves know that PoS systems that come with pre-loaded software can be hacked using an unsecured Wi-Fi network. This fraud has a direct impact on an individual’s finances because a hacker can make unauthorized credit card charges quickly and move on before anyone realizes what happened. Ruined credit can take years to mend.

• Your emails: Email is another venue that hackers use to infect computers with malicious software. They send viruses that replicate themselves in the host computers, performing various tasks such as denial of service to the users of your systems, spamming your contacts and accessing data without authorization.

Summary: After reading this article you probably feel like you are in cyber warfare with hackers and your IT infrastructure is the battlefield. You are absolutely right. Hackers are relentless and they are devising new methods all the time to steal from businesses. But this is one fight you can’t let them win. Protecting client data is not just a moral obligation. You are legally bound by the privacy laws to protect this information by all means. Breach in data security can ruin your reputation, and the financial liability to meet legal obligations may become too much to sustain.

So how do you fight this war in which you have to make certain that there is only one winner? Outsource your IT managed services to professionals who will monitor your networks 24/7 from a remote location. Your in-house IT management team may be able to fix problems, but it is important that proactive solutions are in place in case there is data loss as a result of a breach. Managed services can create solid data backup & recovery plans that will have your systems up and running quickly, so you can reduce downtime and protect your revenue.

The State of Corporate DDoS Attacks in 2016

In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack where the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.[1]

1. "Understanding Denial-of-Service Attacks". US-CERT. 6 February 2013. 

View fullsize