What is ransomware protection?

Ransomware attacks represent a significant danger to all organizations. In a 2023 Sophos ransomware report, 66% of respondents stated they had experienced some form of ransomware attack, with an average recovery cost of $1.82 million—not including any ransoms paid.

Ransomware has become increasingly sophisticated and can be incredibly difficult to remove from infected systems. Modern cybercriminals target backup data as well as production data to try and eliminate your only recovery solution. Having ransomware protection in place helps prevent unauthorized access, data encryption and extortion attempts by malicious actors and ensures a level of recoverability after an attack.

Backing up your data on a regular basis is only effective if the solution provides methods to prevent loss of the backup data itself. Consider the situation where a backup solution is using a network share. While it has permissions and user accounts associated with that share, the network share is still available on the network. A GPO attack that allows elevated domain access to servers and client machines will enable malicious software to encrypt a network share containing backup data in real time.

Backup software moves all your data from one point to another as fast as physics will allow. This necessitates that it has access to all the organization’s important data, applications, network, production storage, etc. That’s more access than most corporate users! To reduce risk to the business, a backup and recovery solution needs to have anti-ransomware capabilities.

Many ransomware tactics focus on encryption, making an organization’s data inaccessible to them. The goal is to lock their files and demand a ransom payment for the decryption key. At the same time, exfiltration is also becoming more common as a part of ransomware attacks. This involves data theft. In addition to encrypting files, attackers will copy the files and can then sell the stolen data on the dark web or threaten to expose personal information unless a ransom is paid.

In either instance, the impact can be damaging without proactive ransomware protection methods. Encryption can lead to data loss and operational disruption, and exfiltration can result in financial loss, reputational damage, and even legal consequences.

Antivirus software can provide some level of protection against certain types of ransomware, but its protection is limited. Traditional antivirus solutions work by identifying known signatures of malicious code. If ransomware displays one of these signatures, the antivirus program can detect and block it. 

While this approach may play a role in cybersecurity, relying on an antivirus solution alone is not sufficient for ransomware threats. These programs depend on having up-to-date signature databases and wouldn’t be able to detect new or modified ransomware strains. They also wouldn’t be able to keep up with ransomware that changes its code and appearance continuously or exploits vulnerabilities that are unknown to the antivirus database.

A VPN primarily focuses on providing a secure and encrypted connection between a user's device and a server. While a VPN enhances privacy and security by encrypting the data transmitted between the user and the server, it does not directly protect against ransomware.

Reinstalling a computer’s operating system can successfully remove ransomware. By wiping a computer, all data is erased from the device, including the spyware. The computer is returned to its factory settings, and you can essentially start fresh with a clean slate. Before performing a computer wipe, it’s important to ensure your backup is up-to-date, so no essential information is lost during the restoration process.

Though wiping a computer serves as one method of malware removal, it is a drastic measure. Utilizing a comprehensive data protection and recovery solution is crucial to minimize the risk of attack and enable quick recovery.