Ransomware Attacks: How To Protect Yourself From Losing Your Assets?

From small businesses to governments, ransomware attacks can severely affect organizations and their assets. This malicious malware can lead to data breaches and disrupt regular operations, thus hurting the victim organization’s reputation and assets. Fortunately, with some advance preparation, you can protect yourself and your assets from the potential effects of ransomware. 

In this guide, you’ll learn how to protect your assets from ransomware attacks.

Let’s dive in:

There have been many cases of ransomware attacks in which hackers demand considerable ransom. Some even demand hefty crypto payments; for instance, in 2021, a ransomware group REvil asked for $70 Million in Bitcoin from the victim. This is just one of many cases of major ransomware attacks.

Considering these severe effects, it’s wise to have a protection plan in place to prevent ransomware or any other cyberattacks from harming your assets. 

Now, let’s talk about some key steps/tips to protect yourself and your assets from ransomware attacks:

Maintain Regular Backups

Having a backup of your data cuts down the problem to half. So, make sure you take proper and regular backups of your sensitive data. You can save the backup on an external device(s) or use a cloud service for the purpose. 

According to a 2019 Unitrends survey, 84% of businesses rely on cloud backup because of many benefits, such as affordability, ease of access, and a higher level of security than external storage devices.

If you’re an organization with a big budget and existing infrastructure, you can consider on-premise, private cloud backup. With this option, your data remains protected behind your own firewall. Plus, you have full control over your internal data.

Have a Plan and Policies in Place

Having a thorough and well-communicated incident response plan helps the IT staff to act, stop, and control the incident quickly. This further prevents or minimizes the damage a potential ransomware or any other cyber threats could cause.

It’s important to include in your plan a reliable data recovery partner like this ransomware recovery service. Such a service will help recover your lost data in the shortest possible time before the damage becomes exaggerated.

In addition, keep a tab on the industry trends. Every day, new and advanced technology comes into existence, and cybersecurity is no exception. For instance, in 2021, the USA partnered with Israel to address crypto-related ransomware attacks. Such initiatives keep introducing new technologies and practices to combat concerns like ransomware attacks.

Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA can help reduce the risk of ransomware because this needs additional authentication in order to access something. This means everyone, including those hackers and those who have access to the system, will need to have credentials to access your data or network system.

System administration on your IT team will be alerted whenever someone tries to either reset or disable your MFA keys. According to the contextual restrictions you’ve in place for system access, the system administrator within your organization may even receive alerts in case of a failed MFA attempt. 

As a result, you’ll be able to track any potential ransomware attack timely. It’s worth noting that MFA can help block a whopping 99.9% of modern cyberattacks, including ransomware.

Important note: Make sure you use unique passphrases, whether you’re using simple passwords or have multi-factor authentication. In addition, never reuse paraphrases across your multiple accounts. Otherwise, ransomware may spread across your multiple accounts.

Partner with a Reliable Data Recovery Service

As mentioned above, it’s helpful to stay in touch with a reliable data recovery service like ProvenData.com. With such a partner, you don’t have to worry about losing your data to ransomware or any other cyberattack. This is because a reliable and experienced ransomware recovery company is just a call away from you. 

So, they will help recover your data quickly and get you up fast while minimizing the damage or preventing it altogether. Just make sure you find a reputable and skillful data recovery service. 

Bonus tips: Make sure you provide proper and thorough security awareness training to your staff. In this way, everyone on your team will be able to identify and avoid malicious emails and links. They can identify and report malicious activities quickly and timely. In this way, everyone on your team will help maintain security levels within your organization.