What is Cloud Data Protection?

Cloud data protection includes measures businesses take to safeguard their information stored in the cloud. With 70% of organizations having half or more of their infrastructure in the cloud and 65% of organizations using multicloud environments, organizational reliance on the cloud means that data integrity and security are vital.

Different cloud data protection projects can involve cloud data security measures, data backup and recovery, data visibility, and governance and compliance measures around data protection and privacy.

Why Cloud Data Protection Matters

Due to the growth of cloud adoption across businesses, vast amounts of data are being stored and processed in the cloud, and threats associated with this data are also growing simultaneously. Even businesses that rely on cloud services need to be mindful of the shared responsibility model – managed public cloud providers are responsible for infrastructure-level security, but customers are responsible for the security of other parts of their systems, including applications, sensitive data, and operating systems.  

Key Challenges in Cloud Data Protection

Even when business owners are aware that cloud data protection should be a priority, the complexity and volume of work needed to improve the security of cloud data can feel challenging.

Data Backup and Recovery

Data backup and recovery ensures that data is recoverable when a disruption or outage occurs. When businesses don’t have backup and recovery measures in place, it can lead to costly consequences. The average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million. 82% of these breaches happened with data stored in cloud environments. This is why understanding your part in the shared responsibility model is crucial.

Data Visibility and Control

You can’t control what you can’t see. Maintaining visibility on where data lives in your system, as well as how it’s being used and who has access to it, is an important first step in determining how best to protect the data. Organizations often struggle to gain full visibility over their cloud environments, or they don’t have the right tools and processes in place to monitor activity and manage access controls.

Compliance with Regulatory Standards

Certain industries have stringent regulatory requirements for data privacy and security. Oftentimes, cyber insurance policies require that companies meet specific data protection standards. Failing to stay compliant can mean businesses are subject to fines and other legal consequences.

Misconfiguration and Human Error

Even when organizations take on data protection projects, flaws in configuration or manual mistakes can create vulnerabilities that make it easier for cybercriminals to infiltrate. Without the right team in place and regular standards checks, businesses can feel secure but still be prone to cyberattacks.

Data Residency and Sovereignty

What you need to do to achieve compliance with data protection will depend largely on your data residency and sovereignty. Data residency is concerned with the physical location of data storage, whereas data sovereignty is more about the regulations and laws around the governance of your data based on that location. If you have data in multiple locations, this can make your compliance requirements more complex, quickly.

Changing Threat Landscape

Cybercriminals develop new attack tactics constantly. Artificial intelligence is making it easier for bad actors to fake voices, write more effective spearphishing emails, and develop more sophisticated social engineering attacks. Organizations need to be informed about the latest threats and what they need to do to keep their security measures relevant.

Cloud Data Protection Best Practices

Face your business challenges and improve your security posture by applying these nine best practices for cloud data protection and cloud data privacy.

Develop a Robust Disaster Recovery Plan

A well-defined disaster recovery plan will include any and all steps your organization needs to take to protect your data and applications in the event of disruptions. It should outline who is responsible for what, which teams and individuals need to be informed of the incident, what should be switched over automatically or manually, and what needs to be done to restore “business as usual” at the organization. To ensure the plan is effective, it’s important to test it annually, at a minimum.

Schedule Regular Backups

The schedule for regular backups should be determined based on how much data your business can lose in an outage or breach without causing a significant impact on your business processes. A recovery point objective (RPO) may be 5 minutes, 5 hours, or even 5 days. What your business can tolerate will depend on your industry and may vary based on the types of data you are looking to protect.

Implement IAM

Identity and Access Management (IAM) can help you define user roles and permissions in the cloud. It can also create a framework for multi-factor authentication. Developing IAM allows businesses to better control access to cloud resources based on user type.

Utilize Cloud Security Posture Management Tools

Your security posture isn’t fixed in time. It needs to be maintained through management solutions. Cloud security posture management (CSPM) can scan a cloud environment for security misconfigurations, empowering businesses to address vulnerabilities proactively.

Perform Continuous Monitoring

Monitoring can be made easier through artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools, which can pick up on suspicious behavior based on pattern recognition. Anomalies that may fly under the radar can be more quickly spotted with AI, and continuous monitoring with AI tools offers a more cost-effective way to keep tabs on your cloud environment.

Use SIEM Solutions

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions take security data from different sources in a cloud environment and aggregate them into one view, making it simpler for security teams to see and respond to incoming threats.

Conduct Patch Management

When vendors find vulnerabilities, they create patches to address them. Businesses should regularly update their software and firmware in the cloud to mitigate issues from these known vulnerabilities, shortening or eliminating the possible window available to attackers.

Leverage Security Partners

Staying up-to-date on the latest cloud security trends is a full-time responsibility and can be difficult for small IT teams to accomplish effectively. By leveraging cloud security partners, IT leaders can add expertise to their team and gain access to advanced security solutions that may be out-of-reach for smaller organizations.

Execute Regular Security Assessments and Awareness Training

Just like monitoring and management should be constantly on your to-dos, regular security assessments and organizational training should never fall off your list. With scheduled security assessments, you can identify weaknesses and address them before they become bigger problems. Security awareness training can add a line of defense to your organization, arming your employees with more cybersecurity knowledge to stop potential threats.

Ready to Take Cloud Data Protection to the Next Level?

TierPoint’s IT Security Consulting services can help you bring your cloud data protection to new heights. We can augment your existing team with our experienced cloud security consulting experts. To learn more about boosting your security posture and developing defenses against top cloud security threats, read our whitepaper.

To meet and overcome these threats, security teams should consider implementing AI tools as part of their cloud computing environment to counteract cybercrime and improve their cybersecurity posture.

We’ll cover the role of cybersecurity, why traditional tools won’t cut it anymore, and some use cases security professionals might consider when evaluating potential applications of these tools.

Why Traditional Tools Are Not Enough in Today’s Cybersecurity Landscape

As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, security analysts face growing challenges in preventing and resolving these incidents effectively. Compounding this issue is an overwhelming number of alerts about attack indicators, which can lead to alert fatigue, hindering the ability to detect and respond to genuine threats promptly. Additionally, the need to operate multiple traditional tools demands constant vigilance, often impeding effective remediation efforts.

This combination of factors – the intricacy of cyberattacks, the overwhelming volume of alerts, and the limitations of traditional tools – creates a large obstacle for organizations striving to maintain strong cybersecurity postures

Understanding the Role of AI in Cybersecurity

While traditional cybersecurity tools can struggle to keep pace with the changing face of incoming threats, AI can influence security and offer a new line of defense that protects your critical data and systems. When trained effectively, AI tools have many use cases, including monitoring, detecting, and predicting threats with greater accuracy and efficiency. AI can also make it easier to manage security patches, reduce the incidence of alert fatigue, and allow businesses to respond faster to legitimate incidents. Because AI tools can evolve alongside the threat landscape, they can also improve response capabilities over time.

3 Benefits of Using AI in Cybersecurity

AI provides innovative solutions that can significantly enhance defensive capabilities. Three of the benefits of using AI in cybersecurity include enhanced threat detection, automated processes, and continuous learning.

Enhanced Threat Detection

AI algorithms can surpass human limitations in processing, allowing for analysis of large amounts of security data, user activity, network logs, and other system events. This data analysis can pinpoint anomalies or patterns that might go unnoticed by human observation.

AI learns from historical data and pulls in information from threat intelligence feeds to proactively identify potential security incidents. This helps security teams identify indicators of attack before they lead to a breach.

Unlike humans, AI tools work tirelessly around the clock to monitor for anomalies and malicious activity which can assist security leaders in detecting and responding to threats quickly.

Process Automation

Instead of having to sort through each security alert and experiencing alert fatigue, AI can take care of the bulk of analysis, filtering out false positives and pushing more urgent alerts to security teams for further investigation. This can improve accuracy and efficiency, while giving security teams more time back to take care of more high-level, strategic tasks.

AI can also automate processes that respond to a security breach. Containment, remediation, and recovery efforts can all be automated, reducing the amount of time spent before addressing an event, as well as mitigating the spread to other parts of your environment.

Applying security patches in a timely manner is critical. These often reflect known vulnerabilities that bad actors can use to exploit your systems. By automating the implementation of security patches to your systems, you can boost your security posture with little to no additional effort beyond the initial rule configuration.

Continuous Learning

Cybersecurity tools rely on human intelligence to function properly, especially AI tools that require training to adapt to new and changing threats. However, these tools can also help humans stay one step ahead of attackers, adapting to changes automatically through a continuous learning process. Security teams can optimize their defenses with AI self-tuning security parameters, and AI tools can also be used to share threat intelligence data with other organizations to improve the security of many other businesses.

3 Challenges of Using AI in Cybersecurity

Any new initiatives or technologies come with their own challenges. When it comes to AI tools, businesses should be mindful of domain adaptation, concept drift, problems with unlabeled data, and issues related to reasoning and transparency behind certain security decisions.

Domain Adaptation and Concept Drift

Models can become obsolete if they are trained with outdated data or limited data sets. This can mean teams will need to engage in regular retraining and adaptation to meet the challenges of a dynamic threat landscape. The more data you can use to train models, and the more recent the data, the more effective the tools will be.

Lack of Labeled Data

Supervised machine learning models depend on labeled data for training. Cybersecurity data may not be labeled, which makes it challenging to apply traditional supervised learning techniques effectively. Instead, models are often trained on unsupervised methods, such as anomaly detection. This can generate false positives and require more upfront work to refine before alert fatigue is eliminated.

Reasoning and Transparency

When it is trained on accurate, current data, especially if it is labeled, AI can be highly effective at identifying threats. However, transparency can be an issue. It can be difficult to understand the reasoning behind AI’s decision sometimes. This speaks to the importance of implementing solutions alongside AI tools that can explain why certain activities have been flagged.

Applications of AI in Cybersecurity

Security professionals can improve the way they approach threats by using AI in a variety of ways. Below, find a few applications you may want to consider for your team.

Predictive Security

Proactive threat hunting using AI algorithms can predict security incidents before they happen through the analysis of large amounts of security data. When teams are able to take preventative measures, they can significantly reduce the risk posed by software vulnerabilities and other attack vectors. 

AI can also be used to predict what attacks may look like, uncover weaknesses and place priority on certain areas where stronger defenses are needed. Simulating a cyberattack can help your organization see what could pose a problem in the future.

Intelligent Threat Detection and Response

Intelligent threat detection and response (TDAR) is an advanced form of pattern recognition used by AI that can find subtle changes in user behavior, system, activity, and network traffic that may not be noticeable to humans but could be indicative of malicious intent. This can be paired with automated incident response measures, limiting the damage and giving teams a head start on attackers.

Vulnerability Management and Risk Assessment

Critical vulnerabilities should be addressed before less important matters, and AI can help teams sift through everything to prioritize the most important patches and mitigation efforts first. This can be done, in part, through risk scoring, which AI can conduct by analyzing a few different factors to assign risk to each vulnerability.

User and Entity Behavior Analytics

Inside threats or compromised accounts can cause major issues for organizations. Insider threat detection can identify suspicious, anomalous activity by first understanding what normal user behavior looks like. If a user attempts to download sensitive files, access unauthorized data, or violate established security policies, this can be a sign of an insider threat. 

Account takeover can be another big issue. Compromised credentials were the second-largest attack vector for data breaches in 2023. Account takeover prevention can include monitoring for anomalies in user login attempts and preventing hackers’ ability to steal legitimate user accounts to gain access to system data.

Network Security and Malware Analysis

Intrusion detection and prevention systems powered by AI can look at network traffic in real-time. From there, tools can be used to prevent malicious activity, such as unauthorized access attempts, data exfiltration, and malware attacks.

Malware threats can also be analyzed using AI, which can be trained to spot new and emerging malware. This allows security terms to get ahead of cyber attackers and form more effective defenses against potential threats.

Embracing AI as a Strategic Imperative

Proactive security measures can greatly improve your organization’s ability to reduce the risks associated with cybersecurity threats. AI is no longer a hypothetical – consider it a strategic imperative to better protect against cyberattacks. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can incorporate AI into your cybersecurity plans, contact the specialists at TierPoint today.

The business applications for artificial intelligence and machine learning are still taking shape. Learn about some of the most popular applications in our white paper.

We’ll cover what’s included in cloud risk management, common security risks, and what to do to keep vulnerabilities low over time.

What is Cloud Risk Management?

Cloud risk management is a process used to find, evaluate, and reduce the risks of using cloud computing services. Businesses take a proactive approach with risk management to protect their applications, data, and infrastructure from potential threats.

The Importance of Cloud Risk Management

With cloud risk management, organizations can improve their business continuity, reduce the risk of data breaches, save money, enhance their compliance measures, and ensure their reputation stays intact. The difference between implementing cloud risk management and not can be the difference between the continuation or the end of your business.

Potential Consequences of Inadequate Risk Management

Failing to manage risks to cloud security can result in several different consequences, including:

• Data breaches: Data breaches can be incredibly damaging to your business. They cost organizations, on average, $4.45 million. Plus, 82% of breaches included data stored in the cloud.
• Financial losses: Financial losses tied up in the cost of a data breach include lost business, labor costs associated with identifying and mitigating the breach, regulatory fines, legal costs, and more.
• Compliance issues: Some industries are required to abide by certain data privacy regulations. If your organization has inadequate measures in place, you may face regulatory consequences.
• Reputational damage: While cloud risk management can improve your reputation, failing to account for potential risks can result in a damaged reputation and a loss of trust. Some customers may never come back.

Common Cloud Security Risks

Cloud risk management starts with identifying common cloud security risks. Understanding what could cause a problem for your business will help you shape a risk management strategy that will best protect your data and infrastructure.

Misconfiguration

Cloud security settings are foundational to your cloud environment and can also be a significant culprit for data breaches. Small misconfigurations can leave large vulnerabilities, such as exposed sensitive data or easier entry points for unauthorized access.

Data Breaches

Cloud environments are attractive to cybercriminals because of how much data can be stored there. If you don’t understand what your security responsibilities are in relation to your cloud provider (more on the shared responsibility model below), you may be leaving your data open to infiltration.

Unauthorized Access

The two most prevalent attack vectors in 2023 included phishing and stolen or compromised credentials. When hackers gain access to credentials, they can quickly work their way into other systems and may even lock the rest of your organization out of part or all of your data and applications with a ransomware attack.

Insecure APIs/Interfaces

Cloud applications rely on application programming interfaces (APIs) to operate. However, if an API is not adequately secured, it can result in vulnerabilities that bad actors can use to reach sensitive data or impact the functionality of your systems.

Lack of Visibility

It can be hard to understand your security risks if you can’t see your entire cloud environment. Without the right tools and processes in place, businesses may not be able to effectively monitor their cloud environments and identify suspicious activity.         

How to Assess and Mitigate Cloud Risks

After identification comes risk assessment and mitigation. By building the right models and using the right tools, your business can reduce security risks in the cloud.

Study the Shared Responsibility Model

With a shared responsibility model, the cloud service provider shares some of the responsibility for cloud security, while the user is responsible for the rest. The level of responsibility will depend on the type of delivery model – IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. For example, AWS may be responsible for the safety of their global infrastructure and the software running on it (compute, storage, data, and networking), but customers are responsible for the security of their operating systems, firewall, and customer data, among other things.

Build a Cloud Risk Management Framework

Once you have an understanding of your responsibility in the cloud, you can start to build a cloud risk management framework. This will include identification of risks, measuring the impact of these risks (or prioritizing based on what’s associated with more critical or sensitive data), planning risk mitigation strategies, creating reports, and implementing risk governance to ensure that plans are followed as described in the framework.

Perform a Cloud Security Assessment to Identify Risks

Based on what you’ve developed in your framework, perform a cloud security assessment to ensure that access controls, data security, and compliance measures are set up properly. You may want to leverage tools and conduct penetration testing – a simulation of an attack – to confirm that your risk management plans will work as planned.

Leverage Tools and Services to Mitigate Risks

The risks your business is likely to encounter will also dictate the security tools and services that will be more appropriate. Security tools you may want to incorporate will have features like encryption, security monitoring, and access control. Some are native to cloud providers, whereas others may be third-party solutions.

Firewalls and Intrusion Detection/Prevention Tools

• AWS: AWS WAF and Shield for web applications
• Azure: Azure Firewall and Azure Sentinel

Logging and Monitoring for Security-Related Events

• AWS: CloudWatch
• Azure: Azure Monitor and Azure Security Center

Integration with SIEM Tools

• AWS: CloudWatch can be integrated with third-party SIEMS, like Splunk
• Azure: Azure Sentinel supports third-party integrations and has built-in SIEM capabilities

Incident Response and Real-Time Threat Detection

• AWS: GuardDuty
• Azure: Azure Advanced Threat Protection

Continuously Monitor and Assess Risks

Risk management is never a one-time fix. The threat landscape is always growing and changing. To protect your cloud environment, you will need to constantly monitor for new vulnerabilities and threats. Create planned intervals for security assessments and dedicate resources to ongoing monitoring so that your cloud environment isn’t just secure in the present – it will be safer from threats in the future.

Taking a Proactive and Comprehensive Approach to Cloud Risk Management

Is it time to move from defense to offense? Do you need support for your security team? TierPoint can help you take a proactive approach to cloud risk management. Our experts can provide you with a comprehensive approach that leaves no stone unturned. Learn more about our IT security consulting services and get on the road to risk management today. In the meantime, download our whitepaper to explore some of the key defenses you can deploy to protect against top cybersecurity threats.

Why M365 is a Ransomware Target

Microsoft 365’s large userbase makes it a particularly attractive target for cybercriminals. Small businesses and large enterprises alike can use M365, so if a vulnerability is found in the system, bad actors can exploit it to gain access to a larger user base compared to less popular platforms.

While M365’s interconnected environment is convenient for businesses, it can pose a greater risk during a ransomware attack, making the spread of encryption or theft easier.

Compromised endpoints, such as unpatched software vulnerabilities and access via malware, are popular points of entry for ransomware attackers, but they can also use other ways to gain access to systems. In June 2023, a company experienced a ransomware attack against their Sharepoint Online environment that was carried out by a cybercriminal using a Microsoft Global SaaS admin account.

Common Ransomware Attack Vectors

Tactics used by ransomware criminals are constantly changing, but some of the most common attack vectors include:

• Phishing emails: Criminals send emails posing as legitimate sources, asking for key information or tricking recipients into clicking malicious links.
• Supply chain attacks: Sometimes, the problem doesn’t start with your business. It starts with a third-party vendor that has been compromised, leading to an attack on your business systems later on.
• Software vulnerability exploitation: M365 unpatched vulnerabilities, especially in their initial stages (zero-day), can serve as a great backdoor for ransomware.
• Compromised credentials: Malware, weak passwords, and phishing emails can help cybercriminals gain access to user credentials, allowing them a way to further infiltrate systems.
• Unsecured remote desktop protocols (RDP): Organizations that use remote access for maintenance or to allow more flexibility for remote workers can be more vulnerable to attacks if the correct configurations are not in place.

The Business Impacts of M365 Ransomware

How M365 ransomware impacts businesses will depend greatly on how much the organization relies on M365 for their critical operations, as well as how many safeguards against ransomware are already in place. For companies that don’t have a plan to recover from ransomware, especially those without backup and data recovery strategies, the fallout from ransomware can be catastrophic.

Disruption of Operations

Because businesses can store so much in their M365 environments, experiencing data inaccessibility as a result of a ransomware attack can bring operations to a grinding halt. Organizations may experience operational paralysis, finding themselves unable to make key decisions that move the business forward, because their files are inaccessible.

Financial Losses

M365 ransomware attacks can inflict a crippling financial blow on businesses. The most immediate hit comes from the ransom itself, which can range from a few thousand to millions of dollars. But the financial losses extend far beyond that initial demand. Negotiations with attackers can drag on, incurring legal or professional fees, and forensic investigations to understand the attack and identify vulnerabilities are expensive endeavors.

Other notable financial losses typically include associated downtime costs, data loss or theft expenses, remediation costs, reputation damage, regulatory fines, additional legal fees, and lost revenue.

Loss of Trust

Data breaches don’t just hurt your finances, they can also permanently harm brand reputations. A business that has experienced a ransomware attack can receive negative publicity. An iffy reputation can also hurt future business opportunities, well after the fallout from an attack has subsided.

Legal and Regulatory Compliance Problems

Some industries require certain safeguards against ransomware. The consequences of ransomware can include legal fines or other regulatory penalties, making compliance crucial for organizations and non-compliance can also render cyber insurance invalid, resulting in greater financial losses.

How to Prevent a M365 Ransomware Attack

Microsoft 365 operates on a shared responsibility model. While Microsoft is responsible for the infrastructure and underlying system, businesses using it are accountable for protecting their data.  This means that preventing a ransomware attack on M365 data requires implementing additional security measures and offering end user training to recognize common threats.

Perform Regular Software Updates

One of the most important steps a business can take in protecting against ransomware is also one of the simplest. When M365 systems have software updates, it’s important to apply them as soon as possible. While some updates may be related to functionality, many have to do with patching newly discovered vulnerabilities.

According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, approximately 17% of data breaches come from either known, unpatched vulnerabilities (6%) or zero-day vulnerabilities (11%). This means it’s important to stay up-to-date on the most recent threats, as well as not let much time pass before making updates on known issues. Consider implementing automatic updates and scheduling regular patch days for your organization.

Leverage Built-In Protection Features

Microsoft 365 has several built-in security measures that can reduce the threat of ransomware. These tools include Microsoft Defender, Safe Attachments, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). While these tools are not all a business should be using to defend against ransomware, they can serve as a strong first line of defense.

Deploy Additional Layers of Defense

In addition to implementing MFA and other tools native to M365, organizations should consider adding specialized solutions or tools to their ransomware protection plan. For example, data protection is still the responsibility of the business, so managing encryption, protecting sensitive data, and configuring tools to prevent data loss are all tasks for the business to take on.

Establish a Robust Data Backup and Recovery Strategy

One of the tools that may be included as an additional safeguarding layer could be part of a larger data backup and recovery strategy. Backup services and tools can help a business recover from ransomware attacks by providing a geographically distinct site for data that cybercriminals may encrypt. TierPoint’s M365 backup services, for example, allow for automated backups, improved data availability, data protection from ransomware, as well as the implementation of air gapping and immutable backups.

Manage Access Controls and Permissions

There’s no organization where every user requires the same level of access. Different departments, organizational levels, and skill sets will require different access points in a M365 environment. Manage permissions and access controls based on what different segments and individual team members are likely to use in your business. You can always change permissions temporarily for special projects. Plan time to regularly review permissions and make changes as necessary.

Provide Education and Require Employee Security Training

Employees can be a significant source of ransomware attacks, from falling victim to phishing emails and social engineering, to lost credentials, to other business email compromises, employees account for a significant amount of data breaches and malicious attacks. Train employees on best practices to avoid ransomware to decrease the risk from these attack vectors. You can even further test them periodically using fake phishing emails and other simulated drills.

Data Recovery Options

In general, businesses have one of two options for data recovery – logical or physical. When there’s something wrong with the physical form of storage itself, physical data recovery is needed to replace damaged parts. However, ransomware is most concerned with logical data recovery, which involves using data backups, data recovery software, or professional data recovery services to regain access to lost or locked data. TierPoint’s disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) offerings can help organizations meet their recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO), while restoring access to data through cloud-by-cloud recovery. Other businesses may benefit from backup as a service (BaaS).

How Can You Recover from an M365 Ransomware Attack?

Unfortunately, some businesses start thinking about ransomware attacks only after they’ve experienced one. To begin ransomware remediation and recover from an M365 attack, you need to immediately isolate the infected systems to stop the spread. Then assess network vulnerabilities and prioritize the recovery of critical data and systems to maintain business operations.

However, prevention is truly the best form of protection to avoid a ransomware attack. Managed service providers can assist in crafting and implementing these preventative measures and recovery strategies emphasizing the importance of preparation.

Safeguarding Your M365 Environment Against Ransomware Threats

Successfully safeguarding your M365 environment from ransomware threats requires a multifaceted approach. By employing Microsoft’s tools, bringing in additional resources, and regularly training your staff, you can fortify your M365 environment against attacks. TierPoint’s IT Disaster Recovery Services include Backup and Recovery for Microsoft 365 Powered by Metallic, as well as complementary solutions that can make your environment much less vulnerable. Download our eBook to explore the comprehensive benefits of implementing a M365 data backup and recovery plan.

What is Considered Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malware that restricts a user or organization’s access to certain data and systems. A ransomware attack carries this out by gaining entry and then encrypting files or blocking access. Sometimes, ransomware infections are accompanied by threats to publish sensitive data. Often, attackers will require an organization to pay a ransom to decrypt and gain access to their data and prevent data exfiltration.

In 2023, known ransomware attacks increased by 68%. Ransomware demands are also getting bigger, with the greatest known demand being $80 million in 2023. About one-quarter of all breaches involve ransomware, making it a significant threat in the digital landscape.

Common Types of Ransomware

There are several common types of ransomware, each with its own characteristics and particular threats. Some of these can also be used in combination.

Encrypting Ransomware

The most common form of ransomware is encrypting ransomware. This is where cybercriminals restrict access to your files by encrypting them using an encryption algorithm. To access their data, businesses must pay a ransom and get a decryption key to begin the data decryption process. 

Locker Ransomware

Instead of encrypting your files, with locker ransomware, hackers prevent access to files, applications, or systems by locking them up. This could look like blocking a screen or keeping users from accessing certain functions on their devices.

Scareware

Scareware relies on fear to get users to act quickly. A typical scareware tactic would include a warning for users to buy software that can fix a false security issue. When users try to install the software, cybercriminals can use it to gain access and encrypt or lock files.

Doxware/Leakware

Much like scareware, doxware (also known as leakware), also depends on fear. Bad actors will claim they have valuable information from the company or user and threaten to leak sensitive data unless they pay a ransom.

Master Boot Record Ransomware

Devices need a Master Boot Record (MBR) to start up. When hackers infect the MBR, they keep the device from operating properly. Essentially, users will not be able to reach the operating system level of the device, so it becomes useless.

Mobile Device Ransomware

Ransomware tends to be the most common on desktop and laptop computers, but mobile ransomware also exists. With mobile ransomware, users are prevented from accessing key files and applications on their smartphones and tablets. Doxware and leakware may also be used in mobile ransomware threats.

How Do You Get Infected by Ransomware?

Just like there are many types of ransomware tactics, there are also many different points of vulnerability for users to get infected by ransomware.

• Phishing emails: These emails frequently direct users to enter their credentials into a seemingly legitimate website. Once entered, attackers will be able to gain access to the network and upload ransomware. 
• Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) attacks: RDP allows someone else to control a user’s computer, or allow someone to access their work device from home. When organizations have weak RDP configurations, they can allow attackers to deploy ransomware. This attack vector is commonly used when organizations have firewall policies that allow sources from the internet RDP access to internal devices.
• Malvertising: Malvertising can be linked to scareware or seem more benign. Users receive malicious advertisements, and if they click on them, they may infect their devices with ransomware.
• Pirated software: When users download software from unverified sources, they may become infected with hidden ransomware.
• Unpatched software: Zero-day vulnerabilities from unpatched software can pose a significant risk to businesses. Patching regularly can reduce the risk of software vulnerabilities.
• Social engineering: Social engineering is a more sophisticated attack vector that is often used with phishing emails or other methods of impersonation, such as voice calls. Scammers may call pretending to be part of the IT team and ask a user to download malicious software, for example. 

How Do Ransomware Attacks Impact Organizations?

At their smallest, ransomware attacks can be annoying, forcing users to find workarounds to their data through backups, or taking down functions that aren’t mission critical. At their largest, ransomware attacks can bring down entire organizations, grinding processes to a halt and impacting thousands, if not millions, of users at the same time. A recent attack at Change Healthcare, the largest medical claims clearinghouse in the United States, led to the company having to connect over 100 systems, making it impossible for them to process medical claims via primary platforms.

Additional impacts to organizations can include:

• Damaged brand reputation
• Compromised employee and customer data
• Legal issues due to a breach or leak of sensitive data
• Significant unexpected costs – on average, it costs $1.54 million to remediate and recover from an attack
• Extensive downtime

13 Best Practices for Avoiding Ransomware

While ransomware attacks are always a possibility, taking these proactive measures can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to common attack vectors or feeling the pressure of paying a ransom demand.

1. Develop Detailed Plans and Policies

You don’t want to be caught off-guard when a ransomware attack happens. By developing an incident response plan and defining roles for your security team to fulfill curing a ransomware event, you can act quickly when an incident occurs. Form a ransomware recovery plan with your team and have marching orders in place so you don’t have to second-guess your plan.

2. Conduct Drills and Regular Testing

Once you’ve created a response and recovery plan, test it regularly. You can create drills that simulate what an attack would be like to ensure the remediation steps you plan on taking will work. Businesses can use what they’ve learned during ransomware drills to improve their processes and be even more prepared for an attack.

3. Use a Zero Trust Architecture

The strictest access method you can implement is zero trust architecture, where all users are required to authenticate each time they try to access the network. Preventing automatic logons will reduce the chance of unauthorized users accessing the network.

4. Maintain Backups

Maintaining backups of network data is the most effective way to restore network and data access and recover from a ransomware attack without paying the ransom. According to Cybereason’s Ransomware: The Cost to Business Study 2024, only 47% of organizations that pay the ransom gain access to their uncorrupted data, leaving 53% of organizations without access to their encrypted data even after cooperating with attackers. Consider employing traditional or air-gapped backups as part of your ransomware recovery plan.

5. Routinely Update and Patch Systems

Software vulnerabilities are an easy way cybercriminals can compromise your network and access data. Patching and updating your systems regularly can cut down on zero-day vulnerabilities, making it more difficult for bad actors to access back doors to your systems.

6. Review Port Settings

Block any unused ports, which can be cracked doors for ransomware attacks. Aside from blocking, you can also allow those ports with the implementation of a firewall policy. If you chose the latter route, be sure to study and execute the principle of least privilege (POLP) when creating your firewall policies and configuring user access management. When following this principle, it’s particularly important to do the following:

• Tighten your firewall rules to only allow essential network traffic. This helps block ransomware’s lateral movement, as it often uses unusual ports to evade detection.
• Give users only the access they need to do their jobs. This minimizes data breaches and damage from compromised accounts.

Additionally, implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) as an additional layer of security for network resource access. By requiring extra verification steps beyond passwords, it severely hinders ransomware attacks that rely on stolen credentials or phishing scams.

7. Harden Endpoints

Fortifying endpoints diminishes potential weaknesses that hackers could leverage for malicious purposes. This process encompasses deploying and updating anti-malware solutions capable of identifying and neutralizing ransomware before it can encrypt data or propagate across the network. Additionally, it includes implementing other security measures like regular patching, disabling unnecessary services, and applying strict access controls.

8. Perform Network Segmentation

Ransomware can do more damage the more it is given the chance to spread. Network segmentation can help you cut ransomware infiltrations off at the pass and limit the amount of damage that attacks can do.

9. Implement Web Application Firewalls

To better protect your network resources that can be accessed via the internet, utilize web application firewalls (WAFs). This type of firewall scrutinizes incoming web traffic, acting as a gatekeeper to thwart malicious requests that could potentially exploit vulnerabilities in web applications. By meticulously filtering out hazardous inputs, WAFs erect a formidable barrier, preventing attackers from delivering ransomware or exploiting weaknesses to gain unauthorized access. These robust security solutions serve as a critical shield, fortifying defenses against the initial vectors commonly employed in ransomware campaigns.

10. Leverage UTM Security Capabilities Within Firewalls

Unified threat management (UTM) offers a multi-layered defense at the network level, encompassing antivirus, intrusion prevention and web filtering, alongside other robust security features. These features enable UTM solutions to detect and neutralize ransomware signatures within network traffic, preventing them from infiltrating network resources and compromising systems. Additionally, web content filtering fortifies defenses by restricting access to malicious websites that could potentially deploy ransomware onto users’ computers, mitigating the risk of infection from external sources.

11. Consider Incorporating Email Gateway Security and Sandboxing

Organizations looking to take their email security up a notch can add advanced multilayered protection against email-borne threats through email gateway security measures, filtering out suspicious emails before they reach a user’s inbox. Sandboxing can also improve email security by creating a safe testing environment for unknown links, senders, or file types in a controlled environment.

12. Use Advanced Security Solutions

Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions aggregate and analyze data streams from diverse sources across the network in real-time, facilitating the identification of suspicious activities and potential threats. By harnessing advanced analytics, correlation rules, and threat intelligence, SIEM systems can detect indicators of compromise early. This proactive approach enables response and mitigation actions to be quickly taken, preventing the propagation of ransomware and minimizing its impact on the organization.

13. Invest in User Education

Employees and users are common attack vectors. Cybercriminals use phishing emails, scareware, malvertising, and more. Training these users on common ransomware tactics, and what to look out for, is the best way to reduce the likelihood they will expose your organization to threats. Implement ongoing education and consider periodic testing that mimics common attack strategies to keep users sharp.

How to Stay Up-to-Date on the Latest Ransomware Threats

Ransomware threats are changing rapidly. Businesses that can stay up-to-date on the latest threats will stand to fare the best in an evolving threat landscape. Cybersecurity teams should lean on reliable and reputable resources to stay current:

• CISA and NCSC: The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the US and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) in the UK are governmental agencies that provide alerts and guidance on ransomware threats and mitigation.
• CSA: The Cloud Security Alliance offers guidance on ransomware protection, as well as other cloud security best practices.
• SANS Institute: This cybersecurity institute publishes reports and research papers on ransomware threats.
• Threat Intelligence Feeds: Certain cybersecurity companies publish threat intelligence feeds with real-time updates on ransomware attack methods and current variants.

Leveraging IT Security Expertise to Avoid Ransomware

Staying one step ahead of ransomware threats requires a multi-layered approach and a wealth of experience. IT teams struggling to keep up with the latest news while keeping normal operations afloat can benefit from the advice and services of an external cybersecurity expert or team.

TierPoint’s IT security solutions can help you identify weaknesses, opportunities for more robust security measures, and best practices for responding to potential attacks. Whether you’re looking for the last pieces to round out your disaster recovery and business continuity planning, or you don’t know where to start, we can help.

Download our whitepaper to learn more about how to prevent, detect, and recover from ransomware attacks.

In these high-pressure scenarios, remediation should be the focus. We’ll discuss what ransomware remediation is, how it works, and the strategies organizations can implement to limit the impact of ransomware attacks.

What is Ransomware Remediation?

Ransomware remediation details the steps a business will take to recover from a ransomware attack. Even when businesses have plans to combat ransomware at its root, it can be difficult to avoid an attack. Hackers are constantly evolving their methods and approaches to find vulnerabilities in their victims’ systems. While it’s important to grow and change your cybersecurity methods over time, it’s equally important to be realistic and plan for the worst-case scenarios.

How Does it Work?

A ransomware remediation process starts with containing the ransomware, preventing it from spreading and encrypting additional files. From there, the ransomware should be removed. Then the recovery process begins, where files will be restored from secure backups. Finally, the attack may need to be reported to the authorities as well as all relevant parties, and the incident should be reviewed to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities that could cause future incidents.

Key Considerations for Effective Ransomware Remediation

Ransomware remediation can be most effective if you prioritize your recovery efforts, conduct an impact assessment, secure your evidence, communicate to necessary parties, and understand the full legal implications of ransomware attacks and your required response to them.

Prioritization for Recovery Efforts

Not every file or workload is mission-critical for your business. Your recovery efforts should be focused first on sensitive data and applications that are necessary to keep your core operations running. Prioritizing can speed up and simplify the recovery process.

Impact Assessment

Fixing the problems caused by ransomware attacks means that you need to start by assessing the damage. How many devices and systems have been affected by the ransomware? What data has been lost, either temporarily or permanently? And how severely are core operations impacted from the initial attack and its spread?

Secure Evidence

Businesses looking to mount a legal response to a ransomware attack will need to collect and document evidence along the way. Be sure to do this on a device that is not affected. It’s also a good idea to isolate the systems that have already been infected with ransomware to keep from tampering with evidence.

Communication Plans

Transparency and clear communication will help you build and secure trust with key stakeholders during the ransomware remediation process. Create a plan that can be executed as needed for communicating with employees, management, law enforcement, and important external relationships, including vendors, partners, and customers. Your remediation strategy should include a plan for who to share information with and when.

Legal Implications

Ransomware attacks can include legal ramifications. For example, you may be required to report the attack to authorities depending on your industry or the nature of your business. There may also be legal repercussions should you choose to pay the ransom.

Ransomware Remediation Strategies

After identifying the problem and alerting the proper organizational contacts to the ransomware attack, your business should engage in these 7 key strategies as part of a comprehensive ransomware remediation plan.

Containment and Isolation

Ransomware can spread quickly if not contained. Section off infected devices by disconnecting them from the network, or even taking the entire network offline in more severe cases. To aid in forensic investigations, capture system images and volatile memory contents of the infected devices. System images provide a complete snapshot of device storage, and volatile memory contents can hold forensic clues for what happened during the inciting incident.

Alert Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Experts

Once you’ve contained and isolated problem devices, consult with security vendors and law enforcement authorities if required, who can provide further guidance and assistance with how to best approach remediation and potentially legal action.

Ransomware Identification and Eradication

After you feel like you’ve contained the problem, it’s time to identify and eradicate the cause, potentially with the help of outside experts. The type of ransomware infecting the system (such as scareware or lockerware) will also help you identify how to remove all traces of it from your systems. This might entail wiping your systems clean, rebuilding infected parts, resetting passwords, and addressing vulnerabilities in your current configurations.

Cybersecurity experts may have decryption tools your organization can use to restore your files. However, if decryption isn’t a possibility, you’ll want to restore data from backups to a clean environment.

Communication and Recovery

The recovery process takes time. Prioritize the systems that are most important to keeping your business functional, and communicate with employees, customers, and other key stakeholders so they know what to expect in the days and weeks to come.

Data Restoration and Backups

One of the best ways to defend your business against ransomware and other data breaches is by implementing a strong backup system that includes immutable and air-gapped backups. Now is the time to plan the failover to your recovery environment using your established recovery practices which should encompass your recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO). Ensure that backups remain isolated to prevent them from being encrypted.

Post-Incident Review and Reporting

While you can’t protect against every potential threat, a post-incident review can help you summarize what you’ve learned from the recent ransomware attack and what you are changing in the future to prevent similar events from happening.

How to Prevent Future Ransomware Attacks After Remediation

After the ransomware remediation process, it’s important to consider what changes you can make to prevent the impact or likelihood of future attacks. Don’t forget to take these preventative measures after the urgency subsides.

Perform Routine Updates and Patching

Zero-day vulnerabilities serve as a common entry point for ransomware. Some businesses engage in routine updates and patching on “Patch Tuesday,” the second Tuesday of the month, when companies like Microsoft and Oracle commonly release patches for their software. Keeping a regular schedule, no matter what it is, is a great way to address known security shortcomings.

Leverage Tools and Software

Much of the work needed to prevent ransomware attacks can come from security software, such as antivirus, anti-malware, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools. The right tools can identify and block incoming threats before they get on your radar.

Conduct Employee Security Training

Employees are another common attack vector. Cybercriminals will use social engineering tactics, including highly targeted messages (spear phishing) to try to gain access to your systems. By regularly training employees on what to look for and how to spot potential threats, you can greatly reduce the risk of attacks from employee sources.

Apply User Permission Restrictions

Restrict user permissions in your systems to only include what’s necessary for them to perform their job functions. If an account gets compromised, this can reduce the potential damage to the rest of your organization. For special cases, you can always supply temporary additional access.

Complete Regular Vulnerability Assessments and Tests

In addition to regularly patching, conduct vulnerability assessments to fix problems before they can be exploited. With penetration testing, organizations can simulate the impact of an attack and find issues before the “real thing” happens.

Implement Continuous Monitoring and Analysis

Continuously monitoring detects patterns and anomalies in your environment, which can allow you to more quickly identify suspicious behavior that may be indicative of:

• A potential ransomware attack
• A malware infection
• Or other cybersecurity threat

One way you can do this is by adding security information and event management (SIEM) tools to your processes.

Review and Update Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Penetration testing is one way you can review your preparedness for ransomware and other disasters, but it should also be part of a larger disaster recovery plan. Review your lessons learned, update systems before the next incident or attack, and remember that maintaining your security posture is an ongoing engagement, not a one-off project, so testing should take place often.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late to Prepare for Ransomware 

The evolving threat landscape is likely to outpace your internal technologies and teams. Businesses need to work with strategic partners who can scale with the scope of new threats and secure trust from the inside out. TierPoint’s security and disaster recovery experts are here to help you stay ahead of the curve and meet new challenges proactively. Learn more about ransomware and our approach to emerging threats in our eBook.

Learn more about our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and other solutions that can mitigate ransomware’s effects. Download our infographic to learn 13 steps to creating an effecitve disaster recovery plan.

FAQs

What is Cloud Privacy?

Cloud data privacy is concerned with how data is stored and kept safe in the cloud. Protection should include any kind of data in the cloud, including financial records, personally identifiable information, and intellectual property. It should also include every step of the data lifecycle – data processing, data transmission, and data storage.

Why is Cloud Data Privacy Important?

Data privacy is important in the cloud because of how frequently data breaches can occur in the cloud. In 2023, 45% of data breaches were cloud-based. Understanding how to protect your data in the cloud will help you keep sensitive information safe, reduce your security risks, allow you to be compliant with relevant regulations and privacy laws, and build trust and rapport with internal and external users.

Safeguards Sensitive Information

Cloud storage, utilized for both personal and business purposes, contains a significant volume of sensitive data. This data can include financial records, healthcare information, and confidential business documents. Focusing on cloud data privacy helps keep these records safe, which is particularly important for data that can’t afford to be accessed or compromised in any way.

Helps Reduce Security Risks

Robust cloud data privacy practices can reduce security risks in a few ways. Implementing strong access controls and data encryption, along with other security measures, can help reduce the risk of data breaches. Establishing guidelines and protocols for data can prevent unauthorized access. Conducting regular data audits and practicing data minimization (only storing the necessary data for your business needs) can reduce the risks associated with data leakage.

Maintains Compliance with Data Regulations and Privacy Laws

Many different data privacy regulations have been enacted worldwide, and it’s up to each business to ensure their data privacy practices are compliant with relevant laws. For example, any organization processing data from residents in the European Union (EU) will need to abide by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Healthcare organizations storing, processing, and transmitting information about patients and their health conditions need to be compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). 71% of countries currently have some kind of legislation in place regarding data protection and privacy.

Promotes Ethical Practices and Transparency

Establishing and enacting a clear data privacy policy aligns with ethical business practices by respecting user rights and transparency around data handling practices. Organizations can demonstrate that they’re committed to upholding individual autonomy, accountability, and transparency in their data privacy practices by publicizing and adhering to their stated commitments.

Builds Trust

Implementing cloud data privacy practices can foster trust and confidence by demonstrating the cloud service provider’s commitment to protecting users’ information and adhering to relevant regulations. Users, by extension, will feel more confident about storing their information in the cloud.

Common Cloud Data Privacy Challenges and Threats

Cloud data faces a complex threat landscape, including breaches and leaks, evolving regulations, and third-party entry points.

Data Breaches and Leaks

Data breaches can start in a number of ways and cause expensive, sometimes irreversible damage to a business. The average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million, with the biggest initial attack vector being phishing. Ransomware attacks made up 24% of malicious attacks in 2023. Cybercriminals who implement ransomware attacks can encrypt your data, refusing to relinquish it until a business pays a ransom.

Threats can also come from the inside. Malicious internal employees may choose to leak sensitive data or exploit their access privileges and jeopardize the security of your data.

Evolving Regulatory Landscape

Data privacy regulations are constantly growing and changing as the threat landscape expands and shifts. To remain compliant, businesses need to update their practices in accordance with these regulations. Compliance is often an important part of being in good standing with cyber insurance as well.

Shared Responsibility Model

In cloud computing, the shared responsibility model dictates that while the cloud provider assumes varying degrees of responsibility depending on the service model—such as infrastructure management for IaaS, infrastructure and runtime environment for PaaS, and both application and infrastructure management for SaaS—customers are consistently responsible for aspects such as data security, access management, and configurations within the cloud service they utilize.

Third-Party Risks

Additional attack vectors can come from third-party integrations and apps. When there are vulnerabilities in these tools, your cloud data can become compromised.

Data Sovereignty and Residency

Data privacy laws may also have regulations not just for how data is stored and processed, but where. Businesses need to confirm that their data remains within necessary geographic boundaries. For example, if data is being generated in a particular country, it needs to abide by the regulations of that country.

10 Strategies for Enhancing Cloud Data Privacy

Don’t leave your cloud privacy up to chance. Instead, employ these 10 strategies to improve privacy and protect your cloud environment.

Thoroughly Vet Your Cloud Service Provider

The cloud service provider you choose should be able to demonstrate a proven track record of security and compliance when it comes to cloud data privacy. Take time to evaluate prospective providers’ standards for data encryption, incident response, and access controls.

Create a Detailed Data Privacy Policy

Data privacy policies should address common concerns and questions around compliance with user data. Organizations should be able to explain what types of data will be stored in the cloud, how that data will be used and protected, and how the established policy aligns with relevant regulatory standards, such as GDPR and CCPA.

Mitigate Impacts of an Outage with a Disaster Recovery Plan

Ensuring the security of data is intrinsically linked to maintaining its confidentiality. Valuable information is susceptible to threats such as data loss and interruptions in system operations. It is crucial to safeguard this information to improve the privacy of data stored in the cloud. A disaster recovery (DR) plan is a blueprint that delineates the essential actions and protocols for restoring vital systems and data following a catastrophic event.

Embrace Robust Data Encryption and Tokenization

Strong data encryption secures information in transit and at rest, requiring decryption keys for access. Tokenization swaps sensitive data with irreversible tokens stored in a vault. The choice depends on data sensitivity and transit frequency: encryption for transmission, tokenization for non-decryptable data.

Implement Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Strong authentication protocols are essential when granting users access to data. For instance, implementing mandatory multifactor authentication (MFA) enhances security. Additionally, it’s crucial to establish a protocol for managing the lifecycle of user identities within your system, employing an identity and access management (IAM) approach.

Everyone in your company doesn’t need access to the same data. Data classification and access controls play an important role in your overall IAM plan. By classifying data based on sensitivity and a need for access, you can limit risks tied to unnecessary permission levels. This is known as the least privilege principle.

Prioritize Monitoring and Auditing

The more often you monitor your cloud environment for suspicious activity, the more likely it is that you will identify problems early. Auditing access logs plays a crucial role in identifying unauthorized attempts to access your system and potential data breaches, providing essential insights into security incidents. Implement automated alerts for suspicious activities using tools such as AWS GuardDuty and Azure Advanced Threat Protection for real-time threat detection.

Perform Regular Testing and Compliance Checks

Identify potential vulnerabilities in your cloud environment by implementing penetration testing. This form of testing involves a simulated attack to determine how well your systems will hold up to different likely infiltrations. You’ll also want to take on compliance audits to confirm that your organization is adhering to relevant data privacy laws. In addition to penetration testing, businesses will also want to test their disaster recovery plan to further ensure the protection of vital customer data.

Foster a Culture of Security Awareness and Education

One of your best lines of defense starts with the employees of your company in any department, not just IT. Foster a culture of security awareness by conducting regular training. Test your team members through phishing simulations, host lunch and learns, and share data privacy best practices.

Stay Up to Date on Security Trends and Threats

Because bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to compromise your data security, staying up on the latest trends will allow you to get ahead of the curve. Learning about what may be a threat to your business can help you prepare and develop new strategies to better protect your data. You should also share these trends with all employees as part of your regular training.

Leverage Third-Party Data Privacy Expertise

Unless it’s one employee’s job, or an entire team’s job, to stay up to date on the latest threats to data privacy, it can be hard to stay informed and make necessary changes to your data practices. Working with outside data security specialists who have data privacy expertise can provide the guidance and expertise you need to protect your data, now and into the future.

Strengthening Your Cloud Data Privacy

Storing and processing data in the cloud can raise concerns about data security, no matter the scale. If you’re trying to navigate cloud data privacy best practices, TierPoint can serve as your disaster recovery and security consultants. Learn more about handling potential ransomware threats and our approach to data in the cloud by reading our ransomware eBook or find out more about our cloud services and solutions.

Once a ransomware attack occurs, the clock starts on recovery. If your business doesn’t have a ransomware recovery plan, the fallout can be costly, resulting in a loss of revenue, productivity, and even trust in your organization. We’ll talk about the significance of ransomware recovery to your business and the essential components that should be included within your recovery plan.

What is a Ransomware Recovery Plan? 

A ransomware recovery plan is a framework that empowers businesses to regain control and restore business continuity, ideally, without succumbing to ransom demands from cybercriminals. It is best done long before a threat arises and should include any and all steps get your business back to normal after an attack. When creating a ransomware recovery plan it should outline all systems and data critical to your business, define a process for backing up your data, determine how ransomware will be found and removed, detail a plan for restoring systems and data, and dictate a communication plan that can be used to inform all key contacts about what to do during and after a ransomware attack.

This proactive approach not only protects critical data but also avoids the financial and reputational risks associated with ransom payments. Keep in mind that while paying the ransom may seem like the quickest solution, it’s a gamble with no guarantee of complete data recovery and further vulnerabilities down the line. So, the most empowering and ultimately cost-effective strategy lies in a robust ransomware recovery plan.

Why a Ransomware Recovery Plan is Essential

You may think that creating a ransomware recovery plan is excessive. Maybe you think your organization is small and will fly under the radar of bad actors. This is where most businesses go wrong. While the median size of companies that have been attacked by ransomware is increasing, according to Coveware, two-thirds of companies that are victims of ransomware have fewer than 1,000 employees, with 30% of companies having under 100 employees; and per a recent Business Impact Report, 73% of small business owners in the US reported a cyberattack in 2022. Regardless of your size, having a recovery plan for ransomware is essential.

How a Ransomware Recovery Plan Works?

Incident Response (IR) Plan

There should be no question about what your business will do next after discovering an attack. An incident response (IR) plan should include short-term and long-term actions you will take in response to an attack and reduce the likelihood of future attacks. Develop a plan of action, including immediate containment, to respond to an attack.

Make sure the IR plan answers the following questions:

• What steps will you take to collect the necessary data to understand the source, nature, and scope of the ransomware attack?
• How will you communicate the incident to internal and external stakeholders?
• What are you legally required to do after a ransomware attack to stay compliant?
• How will you keep business functions moving forward, and what will you need to do to restart or shift other functions?
• How will you decide what improvements need to be made to your security measures to keep these attacks from happening in the future?

After containment, the plan should also include steps for communications, analysis, and mitigation. Consider including answers to the following questions:

• Who needs to be informed about an attack?
• What needs to be audited?
• How can the negative impacts of the attack cause the least amount of fallout possible? 

Identifying and Isolating the Incident

With an IR plan, you need to understand the source of the ransomware attack and the full scope of the situation before disconnecting anything or taking any kind of drastic action. How did cybercriminals infiltrate? What machines are infected? Once the attack has been properly categorized, your organization can move on to disconnecting any systems that have been impacted to limit the harm done.

Disaster Recovery Plan

The end goal of any incident is to return to normal operations as quickly as possible. Determine your strategy to restore capabilities and services that were impacted by the attack. To ensure everything will work as planned, test your disaster recovery plan frequently and modify as you go, making improvements based on lessons learned.

Back-Up

A good ransomware recovery plan will ideally have at least two backups in place, and one ready to go quickly if an incident happens. Some organizations may choose to have two systems running at the same time for virtually instantaneous failover. Others may require additional steps to fill in where the primary environment left off. The bottom line is to keep data backups isolated to remain safe during an attack, and make them incrementally so that you don’t lose any data that hasn’t been backed up since the last session.

Data Recovery Software and Decryption

Even if something doesn’t go to plan, or if you’ve missed something in the ransomware recovery process, you may be able to restore some data to a set recovery point using other system tools native to a particular operating system, for example. However, this isn’t a good method to rely on, as ransomware may also impact the effectiveness of a tool like Windows System Restore.

Some software and decryption tools may also be able to restore data or undo the damage done by encryption. Not all versions of ransomware respond to these methods, either, so it’s good to include more than one method in your recovery plan to restore your workloads.

Boost Your Security

Make sure your ransomware recovery plan includes best practices for keeping security measures strong, organization-wide. This may include enacting two-factor authentication, requiring regular password changes, centralizing logging across your systems, and educating employees through cybersecurity training – more on that in the next section.

5 Steps to a Ransomware Recovery Plan Template

As you can see, ransomware recovery, incident response, and disaster recovery plans all share similar traits. However, when you’re thinking particularly about ransomware recovery, remember these steps.

Train a Ransomware Disaster Response Team

Your employees are your first line of defense against ransomware. The more they are able to identify potential ransomware attacks before they strike, the more likely it is they will be able to prevent these attacks. Each member of the disaster response team should have a clear defined role, the most common employee training will involve spotting phishing emails and maintaining password hygiene. Other employees may need to be trained on specific tools that identify software vulnerabilities and other potential side and back doors for cybercriminals.

Focus on Remediation and Prevention

Even if you have every cybersecurity tool in the world at your disposal to prevent attacks, you can still fall prey to ransomware. Prevention and remediation work best in combination. Immutable storage and disaster recovery are two remediating measures that can help you get your environments back to normal even if you don’t get your encrypted data back. You’ll also want to encrypt your data, so even if it’s intercepted, it’s less likely to be read by the attackers looking for a ransom.

Keep Data Resilience a Priority

The resiliency of your data is determined by how quickly you can return to usual operations after an attack. For some businesses, there may be some leeway on how resilient your data needs to be. Maybe there are some workloads you can do without for a day or two. For others, even a few minutes of downtime can harm the business. Resilience is all about prioritizing backup and recovery, as well as regularly testing these measures to make sure they work without a hitch in a critical moment.

Understand Your Critical Data

It may be that some applications and data are more valuable to you than others, and more essential for keeping your business moving. Understanding this, and prioritizing these workloads during an emergency, will help you develop a hierarchical action plan for ransomware recovery. For example, if you store your data in different tiers, you can put workloads that are less critical in less expensive tiers and focus more on recovering higher tiers when a ransomware attack strikes.

Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

One major part of your ransomware recovery plan will be drafting and regularly testing a disaster recovery plan. Figure out how often you need to back up your data and how it needs to be protected. You may want to follow the 3-2-1 system, for example: Having at least 3 copies of your data, 2 forms of storage media, and 1 version saved offsite in an isolated configuration. You’ll also want to figure out how often you need to back up your data. For some organizations, this may look like backing up every minute, whereas others can go a day or longer without a regular backup.

Testing this plan is a step that can’t be missed. When you test, you can verify that your recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives will be met in an actual ransomware attack, and it can help you find weak spots that may need to be revised to work properly after an attack.

Best Practices for Ransomware Attack Recovery

When a business experiences a ransomware attack, recovery comes down to the following five key steps: Preparation, prevention, detection, assessment, and recovery.

Preparation

Businesses should prepare for ransomware attacks by thinking that it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. With that, preparation well before a threat is on the horizon is the first and most essential step to recovering from a ransomware attack.

Essential components within preparation should include modernizing your infrastructure with a Zero Trust approach and completeing a thorough cybersecurity assessment to identify any threats and weaknesses.

Prevention

When you’re in the frame of mind that a ransomware attack will happen to you, the focus shifts to preventative measures, such as ensuring the latest OS is installed and patches have been updated. Third-party tools can identify ransomware attacks before they are able to do damage by noticing anomalies in user activity, finding attempts to access systems, flagging potential phishing emails, and so on.

Detection

These prevention tools can detect where a data breach has occurred, or where a ransomware attack has started to take hold. Robust monitoring and response capabilities efficiently gather, analyze, and respond to potential threats. For example, AI tools can be used to continuously monitor the environment and automatically send out alerts when an abnormality is first detected so efforts can be taken to quickly address and remove any threats.

Assessment     

Identify and document any threats, risks, and weaknesses. Decide ahead of time what pieces of your system are critical to your business. What data and applications need to be recovered first, and how long can you go without them working? Determine your recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO), and note differences in these times based on your priorities.

Recovery

Once you are sure that the ransomware has been contained and will not infect any new data, it’s time to put a recovery plan into action. If you have failback to another system, the plan will include steps to recover workloads and bring the main site to its normal operation.

Prevent and Isolate your Data from Ransomware Attacks with TierPoint

Ransomware attacks can strike without warning, which is what makes prevention so important. Prevention and remediation, working in tandem, can significantly limit your exposure to attacks and keep your business rolling. Learn more about TierPoint’s Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and other solutions that can mitigate ransomware’s effects. Need help building your DR plan? Download our infographic to learn 13 steps that should be included within every resilient DR plan.

FAQs

Of course, a move to colocation may also spark questions about security – is a move to a colocation facility a more secure option compared to hosting workloads in an on-premises data center? We’ll talk about secure colocation, the benefits businesses can enjoy with colocation services, and how migration can actually improve security.

What is Secure Colocation?

Colocation allows a business to house its IT infrastructure and equipment in a third-party data center facility. The colocation provider is responsible for various security measures at the facility, including physical, network, environmental, and operational practices. Depending on the vendor, colocation data centers may also provide managed security services, assistance with compliance, and backup and recovery solutions.

Advantages of Secure Colocation

Before you work with a colocation facility, make sure you understand the services and the features each provider offers. Most colocation data centers will come with the following security benefits.

Physical Security

Security experts often discuss the OSI’s 7-layer Network Security model, with the initial layer being the physical layer. In fact, physical data center security is one of the reasons many businesses choose colocation.

The most secure colocation data center facilities should focus on data center security, evaluation of potential threats, facilitating access, maintaining access records, consistent monitoring, ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery, managing devices and keys, and employing video surveillance.

Resiliency and Redundancy

Since you still own the infrastructure housed in a provider’s data centers, colocation doesn’t inherently address cybersecurity concerns. There are six more layers that you need to secure. 

Complicating matters somewhat, cybercriminals are devising attacks that affect multiple layers. For example, a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack that starts out attacking layer 4, the transport protocol layer, might quickly switch to attacking layer 7, the application layer. Attacks can also come at you from multiple vectors, e.g., DDoS attacks are increasingly being used as a diversion while other types of attacks are launched in the background. For these reasons and more, data resiliency is essential.

If the main systems should fail, a secure colocation data center should have backups at the ready. Resiliency measures can include redundant power, cooling, and network systems, as well as a failback location for workloads to go if the main site is experiencing some kind of outage. Colocation providers that have data recovery services will have a plan in place for various disasters or attacks. When choosing a colocation provider, organizations should also keep geographical location in mind. Some areas are less prone to extreme weather than others and are therefore deemed more resilient.

Managed Services

Some colocation data centers will merely house your data and provide some base-level services, such as remote hands to execute some simple maintenance or configuration tasks. Others will offer managed services that work to protect all 7 layers.

A full-service MSP model for managed colocation means that the colocation provider manages every part of your IT infrastructure. When choosing managed services, think about the security features that are most important to your business, as well as how a provider can augment and fill in skill gaps not currently covered by your in-house staff.

Network Control

Layer 3 is the network layer, and secure colocation facilities will protect this layer by employing robust network security measures that mitigate unauthorized access or attacks including firewalls, intrusion protection systems (IPS), access controls, and virtual private networks (VPN).

How Secure Colocation Can Enhance Your Business

While colocation doesn’t offer all of the convenience and scalability of cloud computing, it does enable businesses to offload the burden of managing their facilities without squandering recent infrastructural investments. When comparing cloud versus colocation, it’s important to understand that colocation is highly beneficial for businesses with a forte in IT infrastructure, but not in facilities management. Moving to a colocation data center may also come down to wanting to route an internal team’s time to more important initiatives.

Businesses choose secure colocation facilities for a wide range of reasons. Some of the most common include: 

• Existing hardware investments: If you’ve made recent investments in hardware (also known as capital expenditures), colocation can help you leverage these investments.
• In-house skills and expertise: Secure colocation allows you to refocus your IT talent. It enables you to gradually move day-to-day IT responsibilities to a managed provider. Services like smart or remote hands can free even more of your resources. 
• Legacy applications: Many legacy applications aren’t architected for the cloud. Colocation allows you to manage them more closely, decreasing your exposure to cyber threats. 
• Compliance & security strategy: A data center provider can offer private suites and server storage space for computing hardware. This allows businesses to manage their own infrastructure while staying secure and compliant.  
• Connectivity options: Third-party data centers offer a variety of carriers and network connectivity options.
• Space restrictions: Not ready to move some of your workloads to the private or public cloud, but running out of server rooms and data center space? Renting space via colocation is an option with possible data center space cost savings. 
• Physical security: On-premises data centers are incredibly vulnerable to physical man-made threats. Good colocation providers take extensive physical security precautions. 
• Disaster recovery: If your business is located in a disaster-prone region, colocation allows you to house your infrastructure in a less risky area.  

Making Colocation Easier

Colocation with TierPoint allows you to put your company’s IT infrastructure in our strategically located, state-of-the-art data centers. Our facilities are independently audited to ensure we have the controls, processes, and physical security features to help customers get certified as compliant with critical regulations including HIPAA/HITECH, GLBA, PCI-DSS v3.2, and ITAR. Learn about our data center locations and contact us today to request an on-site tour. 

What is the Cyber Threat Landscape?

Any potential or acknowledged threats that can impact organizations, user groups, or are specific to certain industries can be included in the cyber threat landscape. This landscape changes all the time – new and emerging threats and new combinations of threats rise in popularity as criminals become more sophisticated and technology advances.

Why Understanding the Cyber Threat Landscape is Important

Like most things, understanding what you’re up against is the first step in learning how to identify and address it. Businesses that take the time to understand the cyber threat landscape will be able to single out risks, prioritize based on urgency and impact to the business, develop security and disaster recovery plans that will truly address the most critical threats, and ensure compliance with necessary regulatory organizations.

Cyber Threat Landscape Potential Impacts

Organizations that fail to take the time to evaluate the threat landscape can experience the following negative consequences:

• Financial: Financial consequences can stem from cyber threats in a number of ways. A data breach that reveals sensitive information can lead to increased expenses for the company or lost revenue as customers decide to take their business elsewhere. If trade secrets are revealed, the competition may be able to gain the upper hand and encroach on previously unoccupied territory. Companies that choose to pay when their data is encrypted with ransomware may lose money and still not recover their data. Paying premiums for cyber insurance coverage or trying to regain lost ground after a cyber attack can also be a costly endeavor.
• Reputational: When an organization experiences a cyber attack, the reputational damage may be greater than the initial financial damage. Some customers or vendors may never feel they can trust a company again after their information is compromised and again take their business elsewhere
• Operational: Supply chain attacks can create far-reaching operational consequences. When attackers target a company’s suppliers, the disruption can cause material shortages, price hikes, and financial losses. Operations can also grind to a halt when a business experiences a ransomware attack or a data breach.
• Legal: Certain industries and data types are governed by regulations that dictate protective measures that should be in place and/or remediating measures a company should take after experiencing a cyber attack. If a business is not compliant, consequences can include fines and other sanctions.

What Are Some of the Most Common Cyber Threats?

Eight of the most common cyber threats include phishing, ransomware, extortion attacks, malware, malicious apps, DDoS attacks, data breaches, and zero-day attacks.

Phishing

Phishing is a common attack vector that relies on social engineering to get people to take a desired action. Social engineering is a tactic that may include impersonation, emotional manipulation, or other human emotions to elicit this goal response.

With phishing, a bad actor will generally send an email or text message under the guise of a legitimate source with the goal of getting the recipient to click on a malicious link or provide personal or sensitive information.

The act of phishing may be highly targeted with a tactic called spearphishing, where personalized information is included in the message to add legitimacy.

Ransomware

A business that is attacked with ransomware may find they are locked out of sensitive data or data that is vital to their daily operations. A cybercriminal will encrypt the data and demand the victim pay a ransom in order to receive a decryption key or other method to access their data again. Organizations that don’t have backup and data recovery solutions can find themselves particularly prone to this kind of attack.

Extortion Attacks

While extortion attacks may be done in tandem with ransomware attacks, they can also be a distinct attack vector. Bad actors who have accessed an organization’s data will threaten to leak some or all of it unless a ransom is paid.

Two increasingly popular forms of extortion attacks include double or triple extortion. In double extortion, the attacker threatens the organization at the corporate level, but in triple extortion, the threat can extend to the customers or end users who may not want their personal information getting out.

Businesses looking to protect their users or have something go away quietly may find themselves tempted to pay the ransom. Most “successful” attacks on the side of the criminals are thanks to this addition of double or triple extortion tactics.

Malware

Malware may feel like a “vintage” threat, but its use is still relevant today. Typically computer viruses or spyware from internet use, malware is often used in combination with other popular cyber threats, including ransomware and phishing. Employing firewalls and keeping software up to date helps protect against malware, but businesses also need to ensure they are keeping up with increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Malicious Apps

Malicious apps are one type of malware that can steal personal information from users if they are installed on mobile devices. They may also have tracking capabilities or be able to send spam messages to other users.

DDoS Attacks

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is designed to flood the targeted victim with more requests than it is able to shoulder, leading to a shutdown and lack of accessibility to the system. Sometimes a group of attackers can leverage a DDoS attack, and other times, one individual can carry it out using bots. Large amounts of traffic might be sent to IP addresses, websites, or DNS servers in an attempt to limit access or shut down operations.

Data Breaches

Many different attacks may be included in data breaches, including phishing or ransomware. In a data breach, sensitive company (i.e. employee login information or files) or user data (i.e. birthdays or email addresses) is exposed to people who should not have access.

Zero-Day Attacks

Cybercriminals are ready to pounce on recently discovered vulnerabilities, and this is where zero-day attacks come into play. These are vulnerabilities that are found before a developer is able to patch the software and can cause further problems for companies that don’t have a solid plan for patching or vulnerability management.

Emerging Cyber Threat Landscape Trends

New technology, and combinations of existing tactics, mean that the cyber threat landscape will continue to expand and evolve as time goes on.

Artificial Intelligence

AI-powered tools have started to enter the mainstream, with AI writing assistants, programming tools, project management software, and more. However, the benefits of new technology often come with downsides as well. AI can be used to power social engineering attacks such as phishing by creating more realistic messaging and even spoofing the voices of key figures in a company. Because AI can also automate formerly manual processes, it can be used to find and exploit software vulnerabilities at a faster rate. The efficiency afforded by AI is a double-edged sword for businesses that may fall victim to more efficient and effective attacks.

Cloud Security

Major cloud providers offer several security measures for clients, but that doesn’t mean that cloud environments are immune from incoming threats. Data breaches can happen as a result of cloud service vulnerabilities or compromised data on the employee side. Misconfiguration and human error can pose major threats to critical infrastructure.

Exploiting IoT Devices

Internet-connected devices, including fitness trackers, medical trackers and smart thermostats, are called “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. These devices can be subject to attacks due to oftentimes more lax security controls, such as end users failing to update default network settings. Attackers can use their access to control devices or steal data.

Combined Cyber Attack Methods

In addition to double/triple extortion and malware combined with ransomware, cybercriminals are combining other attacks to deliver more effective one-two punches:

• Ransom DDoS: Attackers launch a DDoS attack and promise to lift it once a ransom is paid.
• Exploit packs: Amateur hackers can buy ransomware as a service (RaaS) on the dark web, malware kits, and compromised system credentials.
• Cybercriminal gangs: Some criminals have joined forces and formed alliances with other criminals or groups that have other specialties. This might look like one group infiltrating data and another group exfiltrating it.
• Software supply chain attacks: Supply chain attacks have been on the rise, but now, software supply chains are also at risk. Open-source environments, including GitHub and Linux, may have vulnerabilities that can impact thousands or millions of users who share a repository.

How to Protect Against the Cyber Threat Landscape

While knowing about the cyber threat landscape can take you far, gaining visibility on your own attack surface and implementing appropriate security measures are steps you can take to protect your organization against incoming cyber threats.

Understanding Cyber Attack Types

When you understand what different cyber attack types entail, you stand a better chance at defending against them. Different threats behave in different ways, infiltrate different parts of your environment, and may target specific types of information or people in the company. Understanding which cyber attack types are most likely to impact your business can help you prioritize your security strategy.

Gain Visibility into Attack Surface

Once you know what to look for, you need to gain visibility on the attack surface. Monitoring tools can help with this, especially tools that allow you to see across environments if you’re running multiple clouds or have a hybrid environment.

Use Defensive Measures

Any defensive measures you include will provide additional fortification around your business, and there’s really no such thing as being too protected. Here are some things you might want to incorporate:

• Multifactor authentication and strong passwords
• A plan to keep software up-to-date and patched
• Training programs for employees to learn about phishing and common cyber attacks
• Firewalls, antivirus software, XDR and DDoS protection
• Disaster recovery and business continuity planning

Reduce the Overwhelm of the Cybersecurity Threat Landscape with an IT Security Partner

It’s no longer good enough to simply react to threats. The best way to protect yourself against whatever the cybersecurity threat landscape has in store is by engaging in proactive security measures. TierPoint offers IT security services including disaster recovery, cybersecurity, advisory, security consulting, and compliance solutions that help businesses stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.

Ready to learn more about the top threats to cloud security and the best defenses against them? Download the full whitepaper today.

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