Security measures against ransomware attack
The thought of nameless, faceless strangers getting their hands on our personal data, locking us out of our own files, threatening to do unthinkable damage unless we pay
them a ransom horrifies the average person. Amplify that by 10,000 and you’ll know the dread cybersecurity teams face 24/7.
What is a ransomware attack?
For all the front-page headlines, a surprising number of users and executives still don’t understand ransomware and what it takes to avoid attacks. To start with the
basics, malware, or malicious software, aims to access and compromise endpoints and servers for nefarious purposes. Ransomware is specialized malware that locks up a
user’s files and related systems while threat actors demand payment, often in the form of cryptocurrency, before (hopefully) giving them back again.
How do ransomware attacks work?
Most attacks unfold in these three steps:
- Infection: An unsuspecting user opens an attachment or clicks on a URL that turns out to be malicious. A malicious macro runs, downloading a ransomware agent to the
user device, then delivers its payload.
- Encryption: The agent starts encrypting files on a user device and perhaps attached file shares so no one can access them.
- Attack: The ransomware displays a message on the infected device informing users of their plight. The “lock” screen includes instructions on how to pay the ransom and
obtain a decryption key.
A new front line of defense against ransomware
Ransomware attacks enjoy steady success because organizations aren’t focusing their security strategy on the real target of ransomware attacks – data. For these attacks
to succeed, attackers must both access and encrypt data, which means compromised users and devices need the permissions to do so.
What organizations miss
If the compromised account doesn’t have the necessary privileges to access and encrypt sensitive information, or to leverage lateral movement/privilege escalation, the
attack fails. If you’re adhering to the principles of Zero Trust, the permission to encrypt data should only be granted to a small subset of privileged accounts.
If organizations can’t easily tell which individual identities have access to what data, they’re unable to manage and apply least privilege effectively. To impose
control, best-practice authentication management equips a business to:
- Gain visibility into identity-to-data relationships
- Apply least privilege across all human and machine identities
- Identify and eliminate cloud IAM and data store misconfigurations that lead to access via roles/permissions/policies
Vrangesync plays a critical role in protecting against ransomware by detecting excess privileges your employees and services have on data systems and identifying those
with privilege permissions to databases. By continually monitoring the state of authorization and automating remediation of least privilege violations, organizations can
fully leverage their data without undermining security or compliance.
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