Cyber threats are ever-present with the biggest menace, ransomware, making headlines and challenging storage managers to rethink data protection practices. David Balcar has written a paper called Exploring the Ransomware Epidemic: Unraveling the Past, Understanding the Present, and Anticipating Future Threats. The paper dives deep in to the ransomware realm exploring its genesis and unraveling its ascent into its nefarious recent tactics. It provides essential recommendations to help protect your organization from these infamous digital attacks with critical help from LTO technology. This BlogBytes article reviews a few of the abundant highlights from this must read paper.
The ransomware papers author, David Balcar, shared key insights in a recent podcast. Balcar discusses the ransomware epidemic in detail. He describes a number of attacks that have occurred to a variety of organizations and essential steps to help protect your business from a cyberattack. Listen to this captivating podcast here
WE’VE BEEN ATTACKED!
Balcar states in the paper that “Ransomware has been around since at least 1989 when the first instance was reported. The AIDS Trojan was distributed via floppy disks and encrypted file names on the infected computer.” Of course tactics advanced rapidly with small and big organizations cleverly preyed upon around the world. Balcar discusses a number of victims in the paper like the “Health Service Executive of Ireland … [which] was targeted, significantly disrupting healthcare services. This attack highlighted the vulnerability of the public sector and critical infrastructure to ransomware. In a tale of two breaches are the attacks against Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International where one paid the ransom and the other did not. The total cost of these attacks is estimated to be over $100 million dollars.”
As these cases highlight, organizations attacked by ransomware can likely end up paying big-time to free-up data assets held for ransom. The paper thoroughly describes that the costs of an attack can include ransom demands and can also involve remediation costs to recover data, downtime costs, business disruption, reputational damage, regulatory fines and legal costs.
RANSOMWARE ATTACK WEAPONS
These bad actors use a variety of weapons to employ their ransomware attacks which are continually evolving. The paper describes the most common attack methods:
- Phishing Emails
- Utilizing Stolen Credentials via Social Engineering
- Compromised Insiders
Balcar explains that “The use of deceptive [phishing] emails that trick recipients into clicking on malicious links or opening infected attachments remains a primary method for distributing ransomware.” He goes on to describe a number of cyber-attack methods that are utilized to break in to an organization and other challenges that make it difficult to combat ransomware tactics. Balcar relates a number of cyber-attack instances in the podcast. One attack in particular was where a cyber-criminal called up a casino and simply stated that he had forgotten his credentials and needed his password reset which allowed him to then get in to the system and “it was game over!”
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!
“Preventing ransomware attacks and mitigating their impact is crucial for organizational cybersecurity. A comprehensive strategy that incorporates technical defenses, organizational policies, and user education is essential,” explains Balcar. The paper thoroughly describes a number of best practices needed to prevent and protect the organization. Cyber security frameworks, employee training, and an incident response plan are among the prescriptions. Balcar stresses that “organizations that leverage tape backups rarely make headlines for paying ransoms.” He emphasizes that, “It is of vital importance to have a secure and isolated backup strategy.” When a tape backup cartridge is removed from the tape drive, it is offline, isolated, and not accessible via online ransomware tactics. In essence, there is an air gap between the tape data and the system preventing online access. In the event of an attack to online storage the secured offline tape data can be used to recover. Balcar underscores that “The resilience and effectiveness of tape backups in the face of ransomware threats is second to none.”
The paper comprehensively explains how to integrate tape technology with modern cybersecurity methods. Balcar states that “To effectively combat the ransomware epidemic, preparedness is crucial.” See the paper and listen to the podcast to get more of this essential data saving information and help get your organization prepared and protected.
