How to Prevent Ransomware

Prevention Strategies

If your organization is already covering the critical security hygiene topics above, some other important tactics include:

Prevent:

• Employ strong spam and malware filtering for all company/personal email accounts
• Aggressively update software versions where possible, as soon as possible, for all devices
• Employ antivirus/antimalware programs to regularly scan for known malicious software
• Filter network ingress/egress traffic using sound firewall and defense-in-depth techniques
•  Limit the use of risky protocols, particularly remote access protocols like RDP, SSH
• Exercise caution and skepticism for software downloaded from Internet; scrutinize its source, the reputation of the software author; “too good to be true” offers
• Avoid cracked or pirated copies of software, including cryptocurrency tools

Monitor:

• Review logs, warnings, alerts across critical systems regularly
• Employ and monitor network traffic and endpoint devices for indicators of compromise or suspicious malware behaviors

Respond:

• Isolate infected machines/systems from networking and other resources
• Turn off affected devices only after memory forensic snapshots are complete or determined to be impossible
• Secure backups; ensure they are not connected to affected systems and are offline from affected network
• Contact authorities and seek external expert help