Best Practice to Protect Your Business from Ransomware Attacks

1. Patch early, patch often

Malware often relies on security bugs in popular applications. The earlier you patch your endpoints, servers, mobile devices, and applications, the fewer holes there are to be exploited.

2. Back up regularly and keep a recent backup copy off-line and off-site

In our survey, 57% of IT managers whose data was encrypted were able to restore it using backups. Encrypt your backup data and keep it off-line and off-site so you won’t have to worry about cloud backups or storage devices falling into the wrong hands.

3. Implement a disaster recovery plan that covers the restoration of data

Our recent survey revealed that 90% of organizations have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)/Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) in place that includes plans to recover from a major malware incident.

4. Don’t enable macros in document attachments received via email

Microsoft deliberately turned off the auto-execution of macros by default many years ago as a security measure. A lot of infections rely on persuading you to turn macros back on, so don’t do it!

5.Be cautious about unsolicited attachments

Cybercriminals will try to trick you into opening an attachment in an unsolicited email. If you are unsure about the legitimacy of an attachment, don’t open it. If you do open it and find it to be suspicious, delete it at once and report your suspicions to your IT department.

6.Use strong passwords

The best way to stay safe is to use strong passwords. A weak and predictable password can give hackers access to your entire network in a matter of seconds. We recommend making them impersonal, at least 12 characters long, using a mix of upper and lower case, and adding a sprinkle of random punctuation just like this!

7. Stay up to date with security features in your business applications

For example, Office includes a control called “Block macros from running in Office files from the internet,” which helps protect against external malicious content without stopping you from using macros internally.

8. Get to grips with your cybersecurity platform

Cybersecurity platforms are full of useful features that are sometimes not enabled or require some learning to get the best out of them. Learn your platform inside out to ensure you’re getting the best ransomware protection possible.

How can Sophos help protect you against ransomware?

Sophos is packed with technology to help protect your organization from ever evolving ransomware attacks. Sophos Firewall includes one of the best performing and most effective IPS engines on the market and provides a simple and elegant solution to lockdown your RDP servers. Sophos Firewall offers flexible and easy segmentation tools like zones and VLANs to secure your LAN and reduce the risk of lateral movement, reducing surface area of attack and minimizing the risk and potential scope of propagation