Many organizations wonder why ransomware attacks avoid the cloud as they see constant news of organizations being affected by cyber criminals and hackers.
Recently a successful ransomware attack halted production at 14 Toyota factories in Japan resulting in the automaker to shut down their combined output of 13,000 vehicles.
Ransomware threatens all industries and a recent SonicWall annual threat report for 2021 reveals a 231.7 percent increase in ransomware attacks since 2019. In addition, the CISA, NSA, and FBI have all released an advisory stating that hackers are franchising their ransomware tools to less experienced hackers.
Organizations must protect against ransomware attacks as part of their overall cybersecurity strategy. Proactively protecting endpoints from ransomware is mandatory. Ransomware is less of a threat if your organization is in the cloud.
What Is Ransomware?
Data breaches involve stolen data, not ransomware. Ransomware is software that takes control of a system and then encrypts data so that it cannot be accessed until you pay a ransom. Organizations can be crippled by this, effectively shut down until they can regain access to data.
Cloud environments are not seeing ransomware attacks, despite ransomware being a major cyber threat.
A New Cyber Security Threat Landscape
Cloud control functions include building virtual servers, changing network routes, and gaining access to databases. Cloud management is controlled by the API control plane.
A cloud platform provider like Amazon, Google, or Microsoft matters most to your data’s security and resilience. The cloud makes replicating data cheap and easy. A well-architected cloud environment ensures your data is backed up multiple times. The key to blocking ransomware is multiple copies of your data to reduce the hacker’s ability to lock you out. The latest version of the data prior to the encryption can be reverted if an attacker encrypts your data and demands ransom.
Good design and architecture are critical for cloud security, not intrusion detection and security analysis. They are not trying to compromise your network to lock you out; they are trying to exploit cloud misconfigurations to exploit your cloud APIs and steal data right from under your nose.
What Is Cloud Misconfiguration?
A cloud misconfiguration can range from a simple misconfiguration of a particular resource, such as leaving a port open to an architectural weakness that attackers can exploit to turn a small misconfiguration into a giant cyber security hole. If your organization operates in the cloud, your environment has both kinds of vulnerabilities. Since cloud services is software, these types of cyberattacks can be prevented with a proactive approach. A managed IT services Toronto provider can help plan this out.
Build Cloud Security on Policy
Cloud services infrastructure is designed and built so you don’t have to avoid the cloud. Managed IT services providers or developers own that process which changes the IT security team’s role fundamentally.
With a organization wide policy, an organization can state their security and compliance policies in a language that is clear and eliminate any configuration issues. You can use it to detect undesired conditions or things in running the cloud environment. This makes it possible for all cloud services to operate securely without ambiguity or disagreement about what the rules are and how they should be applied.
Harden Your Cloud Services Security Posture
Why ransomware attacks avoid the cloud? Simple, there are some guideline that all organizations must follow to be effective with cloud security as well as harden its cloud security posture:
- Take action. Hackers use automation to detect misconfigurations in cloud environments. Regular cloud security audits are insufficient. Continuously assess your cloud environment with your managed IT services provider or IT department.
- Don’ react, be proactive. Do not turn away from intrusion detection however there should be a large focus on preventing misconfiguration vulnerabilities. Cyberattacks on cloud services happen too fast for any technology or team to stop them in progress. A managed IT services Toronto provider will have tools in place to stop and proactively manage.
- Develop your team. Proactive cyber security training empowers them to proactively protect the company. This in combination with your managed IT services provider being proactive will result in a better position to prevent misconfigurations.
- Identify and measure. Create a list of processes, services, and data. This will allow you to measure cyber security measures and take a proactive approach with your managed IT services. This will prevent vulnerabilities and the resulting security incidents.
Proactive cyber security prevention is the best form of defense. To quickly identify and remedy cyber security misconfigurations.
Why ransomware attacks avoid the cloud? Simple, it is much easier to secure.
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