Practically every day, there is a new report of companies, hospitals and schools being targeted and compromised by ransomware. Once infected–often after an employee downloads and installs a malicious application–files are encrypted and renamed, and there is no way to get data back without paying adversaries for a key. Notably, this happened earlier this year to a hospital in Southern California, which had to pay $17,000 to get its files back. Because ransomware attacks have risen in volume and complexity, an increasing number of organizations have been forced to pay the ransom. The good news is that there are ways to fight back against ransomware. The following eWEEK slide show presents guidelines on how companies can avoid being infected by ransomware in the first place, and how those who do fall victim can stop and mitigate damage from an attack. This industry information is from Idan Levin, co-founder and CTO at Boston-based Hexadite, a security orchestration and automation provider.
- eWeek