Every computer owner has had the heart-stopping moment where a popup comes up and says that your computer has been infected. Most people know that the popup is lying and doing anything to fix that infection inside the popup will guarantee the computer is infected. This scareware is one of several types of malicious attacks that cost businesses significantly every year.
The worst of malicious software attacks is ransomware, which encrypts all your data so that you have to pay the attacker to get the encryption key and access your data. The best place to protect your business against these attacks is in keeping your software and hardware up to date and ensuring that employees are trained in basic security practices.
Alt-F4
If your employees do not know the system standard for exiting popups (Alt-F4 in PCs), train them on it. Immediately closing a suspect window is often the best way to prevent scareware from installing ransomware or other malware on your computer.
Understanding Security on Your Platform
Different platforms have different security measures. You need to understand how to ensure that your IT platform is secured to prevent the installation of ransomware or other nefarious software. Segmenting data, regular backups, and requiring an admin password to run new executable files are all good tools that integrate with many platforms to prevent installation of malicious software.
Regular Backups
Proper backups need to be done regularly to non-connected devices of all your necessary business data. Since ransomware encrypts your data on connected devices, if you regularly create backups on separate devices, you can simply wipe the infected hardware and restore your data with minimal data loss.
Use Password Protection for Executable Files
Finally, many businesses need to put in place policies and software that ensure employees cannot accidentally install software on the company's IT systems. Requiring a password from a network admin to install new software will prevent even an administrator from accidentally clicking on a disguised link to malware and installing it on the computer.
Want to know how your organization would hold up against ransomware?
Our team performs penetration tests and phishing assessments that test your defenses against the same techniques attackers use to deploy ransomware. Reach out to discuss a security assessment.
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