Three Ways to Protect Your Business Against Ransomware-as-a-Service

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Last week I was at one of our sales offices in Utah. I heard an interesting story about how a dentist office called in to ask for threat prevention against ransomware. The dentist office had been affected by ransomware twice in a short period of time. Twice, they paid the ransom to ensure business continuity and customer retention. This is a common story across many small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) though we seldom hear about them in the media.

According to a study conducted in June 2016 by Osterman Research Inc., 30 percent of the ransom amounts demanded are $500 or less, reflecting the size of businesses affected by the attacks. SonicWall’s GRID threat research team has seen massive increases in ransomware infections for 2016, mostly coming from small and medium businesses. A new variant of ransomware, Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), designed to be user friendly and deployable by anyone, can simply download the virus either for free or for a simple fee.

Ransomware-as-a-Service

Even simple measures can help protect against ransomware. Here are three ways:

Training

The same study shows that 67 percent of U.S. cyberattacks originate via phishing through emails. Organizations requiring employees to do security awareness training once a year at least are less likely to get infected than companies that do it less frequently. Training alone is not sufficient, but can provide the necessary first line of defense for a lot of businesses.

Data backup

Ransomware exists because organizations keep paying the attackers for their data.  With a good data backup infrastructure, businesses can redeem itself quickly by cleaning up their network and restoring the data from backup.

Technology

Advanced threats like ransomware attack all kinds of businesses. After multiple attacks, a big business can revive itself and get back on track. However, SMBs cannot afford such multiple attacks. Small amounts paid multiple times can quickly add up, and result in closure of a small business. It is even more important today for SMBs to invest in strong and advanced security solutions available through next-generation firewalls.

SonicWall firewalls have been protecting SMBs all over the globe for more than 25 years. With the comprehensive SonicWALL Gateway Security Suite providing gateway anti-virus, URL/web filtering and intrusion prevention services, businesses were protected 24x7x365 against known malware. With the recent increase in unknown malware and zero-day threats, the new Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS) includes SonicWall Capture ATP,  a multi-engine network sandboxing solution, providing advanced threat protection to all SonicWall firewalls including the TZ Series for SMBs.

Discover best practices and download our solution brief: How to protect against ransomware.

Use the Advanced Gateway Security Suite from SonicWall.

SonicWall Staff