Governments now list ransomware threats as a national risk that are to be considered high-profile and disruptive to all organizations.
The US Department of Justice has listed ransomware on the same level as terrorism. The UK GCHQ has ranked ransomware as the main threat facing businesses today. The unfortunate reality is that cyber security is being forced to rethink their cyber security IT strategies to deal with ransomware as existing cyber security defenses have proven to be inadequate to protect businesses.
Many organizations use traditional anti-virus that are signature-based. These traditional anti-virus defenses are slow, and static resulting in it being too slow against fast-moving sophisticated cyber-attacks and cyber threats. As cyber criminals create new sophisticated cyber-attacks and continue to emerge, it is catching IT departments and managed IT services providers off guard. The incredible speed and scale of cyber security attacks now mean that human cannot react in time to these cyber security threats.
The best managed IT services providers and managed security services providers use next generation with artificial intelligence (AI). This brings in new advanced technology to help organizations understand that business is critical in empowering organizations to fight back against cyber criminals.
Interesting fact, cyber security professionals report that organizations will experience a ransomware attack every 11 seconds in 2021. That is an increase from 40 seconds back in 2016.
What cyber security tools did business use to use to protect themselves?
In the past, the traditional IT security approach to defense was with the use of firewalls, traditional antivirus tools, email gateways and some preventative controls. These setups can identify basic cyber threats using simple things such as pre-defined rules and signatures to stop simple ransomware.
Now organizations are faced with a much more robust issue such as having to proactively deal with email, cloud, network, and endpoint security. Now IT departments and IT security professionals must account for employee behavior across a wide range of services and infrastructure. It takes away the ability to isolate solutions due to the lack of visibility.
Are cyber criminals looking at remote workers?
Work from home and creative new working practices have increased the ransomware risk facing organizations. These new hybrid working environments are giving users access to mission-critical infrastructure remotely resulting in sensitive data spread across different networks with little to no cyber security. This has been a large front for cyber criminals to gain quick access via a well-known and offend little protected Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exploitation. The hackers either use accidental credential exposure or brute-forcing cyber-attack.
The most common cyber attach has been entry from ransomware email. Cyber attackers have moved away from simple ‘pray-and-spray’ techniques and now create much more tailored and targeted cyber security campaigns that leverage the latest trends to get victims to engage with phishing campaigns and click malicious links.
Interesting fact, IT security experts report that global cyber-crime will reach $10.5 trillion by 2025.
Are cyber criminals are becoming more professionalism threat actors?
Why have cyber criminals been so successful? Simple, they are smart and great actors. Hackers are aware of the defensive cyber security tools that they are trying to evade. It’s a game of cat and mouse. Their biggest target is always organizations using older legacy systems that are siloed. Like any other industry, innovation is based on developing new cyber security defences against new developing threats. This can include creating fileless malware and many other possible cyber security threats that can result in millions in profits for cyber criminals.
Cybercriminals have even launched “Ransomware-as-a-Service” as a service they can sell or lease to other hackers or affiliated services. Many of these services also offer 24/7 helpdesks, ‘ethics’ codes, and reviews. The launches a high-speed and advance ransomware and malware system available to lower end hackers.
How does an organization get protection from cyber criminals?
It is very important to understand that cyber security is a layered approach and no one single service or app will protect you from advanced cyber criminals. Next generation anti-virus with built-in technology is used by thousands of organizations, managed IT services providers, and managed security services providers globally to stop ransomware seconds after it emerges. This gives organizations 24/7/365 autonomous defense against their critical data and systems.
365 iT SOLUTIONS is an award-winning IT provider that is federally certified by the Canadian federal government under the CyberSecure Canada program.
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365 iT SOLUTIONS is Toronto’s leading IT consulting firm that offers Managed IT Services, Tech Support Services, Cloud Services, Managed Security Services, IT Support Services, IT Outsourcing Services, Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), and Cyber Security Training and Dark Web Monitoring.
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