Many organizations around the world have to protect their networks from ransomware attacks. When these attacks take place, companies make huge losses. There are, however, a few warning signs to look out for.
The ordinary ransomware attack arrives in an organization in email attachments. When a company employee opens the email, the malware starts to encrypt your files.
Watch out for the following activities and events so that you can minimize ransomware, discover attacks fast and at the same time prevent the attacks from spreading:
Phishing Attacks
As mentioned, most ransomware attacks come in the form of a standard email attachment. Every organization should have an effective email monitoring and filtering software. The software should flag all suspicious emails. The administration should be informed when an email is flagged and the reasons behind the decision.
When an email comes with an attachment like .zip or .exe extension, the company management must be informed immediately. In most cases, this will turn out to be malicious activity.
The administration should alert all their teams and ask them to be extra careful when malicious attachments start coming in. The management cannot be effective in managing all the employee email accounts, but they can make things easy by educating them about the things to keep checking. The business email accounts should be monitored around the clock.
When an organization receives an email from any public domain, action should be taken. The company administration should check for grammatical errors because most spammers are not from English-speaking nations.
Remote Access Using RDP
Remote Desktop Protocol, popularly known as RDP, is mainly used to allow the employees to remotely use applications and files on a company server. Many attackers, however, have started using RDPs to run their malware. This RDP usage has slowly become the easiest and most popular way to attack modern companies. This ransomware attack happens mostly when the company employees are allowed to work from their homes.
The cybercriminals begin by scanning the internet to find any exposed RDP ports. These criminals rely on port scanning software like angry. The attackers access the company networks by utilizing stolen identities.
When they successfully access your network, the attackers carry out their ransomware attack after disabling all your security systems. Most of them delete important backups, antivirus, and basic configuration settings.
There are effective ways of monitoring the status of your company’s RDP services. The right tool should be able to easily and quickly detect and alert the administration when there are failed login attempts.
Organizations need a fast auditing solution that responds when any vital company information is deleted. Nobody in the company will want to delete backup files without authorization.
The Presence of Mimikatz
Recently, Mimikatz has become a top-rated hacking tool. Criminals use this tool to steal essential credentials. Hackers use Mimikatz to exploit the company’s SSO functionality.
Many organizations believe that they can use effective antivirus software or other security tools to detect Mimikatz. Sometimes, the security systems might fail you. The attackers always have root access when using Mimikatz, and they circumvent your company defenses.
If you want your company to stay away from a Mimikatz ransomware attack, always make sure that all the admin privileges in the organization are accessible only to those who seriously need to use them.
The administration should always check the user behavior and ensure no unusual activities. Companies can achieve this by utilizing machine learning algorithms. These tools will learn the typical use patterns and alert the management when the patterns are out of the standard threshold.
