When fighting ransomware, prevention is your first line of defense.
Because you know the value of ransomware prevention, you:
- Educate end users not to open emails or attachments from unknown senders or download software from torrent sites and to limit their browsing activities to approved websites and applications only
- Control administration rights to business critical data
- Keep operating systems regularly patched and updated
- Deploy next-generation firewalls and email security tools to block phishing attacks
- Install and enable signature-based antivirus or next-gen AV software
But what if ransomware prevention fails?
Even with state-of-the-art prevention methods, some ransomware attacks do infiltrate. The damage these ransomware viruses can cause to businesses goes beyond data loss, which in and of itself can be devastating. Companies can experience revenue and productivity loss as well as damage to reputation.
- 77% of organizations infected with ransomware were running up-to-date endpoint protection1
- The average cost per ransomware attack to businesses was $133,000 in 20171
- 54% of organizations do not have specific anti-ransomware protection in place2
1 https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2018/02/01/understanding-ransomware-and-the-impact-of-repeated-attacks/
2 https://www.sophos.com/en-us/medialibrary/Gated-Assets/white-papers/endpoint-survey-report.pdf
Last line of defense
As a last line of defense against ransomware, companies must leverage backup and data recovery processes with well-defined frequency, as well as storage features like Continuous Data Protection, which takes immutable snapshots of the complete data set.
Should a ransomware attack occur, encrypting the data and corrupting the primary file system, the snapshots are completely unaffected, immune from any modification or deletion. Following an attack containing ransomware, data recovery is quick, either from snapshots or backup images.
Businesses must also include a disaster recovery plan with a cloud or offsite replication of backed-up data, and with periodic testing of your data recovery plan.
If Prevention Fails, StorageCraft Protects Your Data
ShadowXafe
This next-generation data protection solution features unified SLA-driven management and tight integration with StorageCraft Cloud Services for true one-click disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). Should a ransomware attack occur, you can recover data instantly from booted backup images: files in seconds and entire systems in minutes.
OneXafe
This converged data platform unifies enterprise-class data protection with scale-out storage. Withstand ransomware attacks and recover previous versions of files thanks to OneXafe's continuous and immutable snapshots. OneXafe tightly integrates with StorageCraft Cloud Services for one-click DRaaS.
StorageCraft Cloud Services (DRaaS)
With the right disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), a business can survive anything. Replicate backups to the StorageCraft Cloud where encrypting malware can't reach them. StorageCraft Cloud Services helps you to quickly retrieve data, virtualize machines, and re-create your network with customized cloud configuration.
"The StorageCraft Cloud gives us peace of mind. If you lose data, you’re done. That’s why our number one priority is making sure it’s protected—it’s the only thing you can’t really get back or re-create. We feel protected now.”
"To be honest with you, I did [consider paying the ransom]. On the first day, absolutely. I really could not afford to be without those files."