5 Top Tips for Ransomware Prevention

David Ford

Founder

Here are 5 of our top tips to prevent a Ransomware attack from happening within your organisation.

1) Response and Recovery Plan: Firms implementing recovery plans before a cyber-attack will restart their systems much faster than those without one. The most successful organisations will have previously tested recovery to ensure the viability of their plans and adjust them based on lessons learned. The ability to assess if data is stolen, what that data contains, and how to deal with a potential data loss extortion threat proves critical in modern ransomware intrusions.

2) Keep Software Up-To-Date: Ensure that all of your Software is kept up-to-date. If you are using an older version of Software, you may be vulnerable to a Ransomware attack—just like the Wannacry attack. Make regular software checks and install all security updates or patches.

3) Backup Your Critical Data: Ensure your data is backed up regularly, especially your critical data. It is also a great advantage to back up multiple copies online using the cloud and offline to external devices. Put your eggs into multiple baskets. Use a Ransomware recovery service where your data will be copied and backed up using Object Lock. This allows backup data copies to be made unchangeable for a certain period, preventing any cyber attackers from encrypting data – so you can restore your clean copy to be back up and running without giving in to the hacker by paying the ransom.

4) Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA helps safeguard access to applications and data while being simple for users. It requires users to add a secondary form of authentication before being allowed to access resources. It increases security, reduces the risk of unauthorised access, and can protect against credential theft.

5) Ignore Hyperlinks and Emails from Unknown Sources: Spam emails and social media messages are widely used to trick people into clicking on links, creating malware on your device, and ultimately infecting the network. If something doesn’t look right about the email address or the name, hover over the link to see the link’s actual destination. Sending fake simulated phishing emails to your team is a good way of testing their cybersecurity awareness. Remember, most cyberattacks are due to human error.

Need a bonus tip? Use the 3-2-1 rule for even greater resilience.
This method means backing-up your data 3 times, using 2 different types of media, with 1 off-site location.

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1) Response and Recovery Plan: Firms implementing recovery plans before a cyber-attack will restart their systems much faster than those without one. The most successful organisations will have previously tested recovery to ensure the viability of their plans and adjust them based on lessons learned. The ability to assess if data is stolen, what that data contains, and how to deal with a potential data loss extortion threat proves critical in modern ransomware intrusions.

2) Keep Software Up-To-Date: Ensure that all of your Software is kept up-to-date. If you are using an older version of Software, you may be vulnerable to a Ransomware attack—just like the Wannacry attack. Make regular software checks and install all security updates or patches.

3) Backup Your Critical Data: Ensure your data is backed up regularly, especially your critical data. It is also a great advantage to back up multiple copies online using the cloud and offline to external devices. Put your eggs into multiple baskets. Use a Ransomware recovery service where your data will be copied and backed up using Object Lock. This allows backup data copies to be made unchangeable for a certain period, preventing any cyber attackers from encrypting data – so you can restore your clean copy to be back up and running without giving in to the hacker by paying the ransom.

4) Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA helps safeguard access to applications and data while being simple for users. It requires users to add a secondary form of authentication before being allowed to access resources. It increases security, reduces the risk of unauthorised access, and can protect against credential theft.

5) Ignore Hyperlinks and Emails from Unknown Sources: Spam emails and social media messages are widely used to trick people into clicking on links, creating malware on your device, and ultimately infecting the network. If something doesn’t look right about the email address or the name, hover over the link to see the link’s actual destination. Sending fake simulated phishing emails to your team is a good way of testing their cybersecurity awareness. Remember, most cyberattacks are due to human error.

Need a bonus tip? Use the 3-2-1 rule for even greater resilience.
This method means backing-up your data 3 times, using 2 different types of media, with 1 off-site location.

Share