What is Ransomware?

Simply explained, ransomware is a form of malware that infects a computer system and encrypts the data of the victim. It either totally prevents access to the data or snatches it and threatens to reveal it. Criminals that use ransomware frequently threaten to reveal sensitive information unless a ransom is paid (usually in cryptocurrency).

The majority of ransomware attacks begin with a phishing or social engineering attempt. A compromised password, a malicious email attachment received by an unaware employee, or even incidental surfing of an infected website through a mobile device may all lead to a ransomware attack that encrypts files and all corporate data in minutes.

As we’ve seen recently, ransomware attacks have disrupted gas supply in the world’s largest economy, and a baby has allegedly died as a result of medical incompetence – all as a result of ransomware assaults. Malware and ransomware protection are not simply IT and security issues, but rather complicated commercial and governmental challenges.

What is Ransomware Protection?

So, what does ransomware protection entail? Ransomware prevention entails considering tools, techniques, and policies to prevent ransomware from ‘attacking’ a company in the first place.

Yes, anti-ransomware tools and anti-malware security technologies are required, but it goes much beyond. Business and human factors are also included in ransomware protection. Simple hygiene measures might go a long way toward safeguarding your company against ransomware threats.

As we all know, in the instance of the Colonial Pipeline assault, a single leaked password caused havoc on gas supplies throughout the East Coast of the United States, impacting not only Colonial Pipeline’s company but also the companies and everyday lives of many others.

The goal of ransomware prevention is to create a healthy cybersecurity environment in your company, where technology and people work together to reduce the likelihood of being attacked and the severity of the attack if it does happen.

Investing in a Ransomware Assessment completed by outside experts is a wonderful method to learn about your company’s risks and ransomware response capabilities. It’s also a good idea to have a robust and reliable Ransomware Response plan in place in case the worst happens.

Can you truly prevent Ransomware?

Nobody can claim to have figured out how to entirely avoid ransomware. However, there are a few ransomware prevention techniques that every company may do to come as close to stopping attacks as feasible.

The first and most important step is to educate your employees on ransomware attacks, ransomware prevention measures, and how to spot phishing emails and harmful files.

Key corporate leaders must be well-versed in their positions and responsibilities, as well as recognize the value of their privileged credentials.

More importantly, your employees and key decision-makers should be aware of and conversant with Ransomware Response Checklists so that the response becomes second nature to them. Business leaders will be able to make the appropriate judgments and think and act calmly despite the chaos if they regularly practice these checklists using Ransomware Tabletop Exercises – a vital part of ransomware defense.

There are a few more things your company can do to guarantee that it is safe against ransomware attacks:

1. Backups: Offline data backups are the most effective security you may have against ransomware offenders. Why? Because your data is protected if the ransomware virus cannot reach and encrypt data in backups. Keep in mind that the crucial term here is ‘offline.’ In other words, the backed-up data must not be connected to the Internet in any manner. To put it another way, if your backup system is unchangeable, you can nearly always recover and maintain business continuity. Because you’ll have a backup of your data, you won’t have to negotiate or pay if hackers demand money, and that’s half the battle won.

2. Stay Updated: Ensure that all of your browsers and software are up to date regularly. Even operating system upgrades for your mobile devices must be kept in mind. Give pop-ups and extensions no rights they don’t need. These can result in data theft and serve as entry points for infection into your computer networks.

3. Always Verify: It’s wonderful to hear that your company has invested in reliable backup systems. However, the efficacy and impenetrability of these backups must be checked regularly.

External audits and evaluations of high quality are a wonderful approach to objectively examine and test the viability of your IT infrastructure, as well as its ability to survive a ransomware assault.

When it comes to ransomware security, here are just a few suggestions to get you started. When it comes to developing anti-ransomware skills in your organization, there are a plethora of excellent materials to choose from.

Ransomware Checklists and preparedness processes will provide you with a rapid overview of what you can do to reach the degree of security needed to stop thieves in their tracks. It takes time and effort to become almost as secure as possible and to develop cyber resilience skills, but it’s not impossible with the appropriate guidance.

Simply defined, a Cybersecurity Assessment evaluates your organization’s readiness to respond to a cyber event.

These evaluations determine the amount of danger your company faces as well as the significant flaws in your cybersecurity infrastructure, policies, and processes.

As cyber threats evolve and become more complicated and virulent with each passing day, all firms should consider investing in regular cybersecurity audits. This is the only way to stay on top of cyber threats, ensuring that your cybersecurity plan is robust enough to cope with any cyber threats, and keep your organization running smoothly.

While standard cybersecurity audits, such as ISO 27001:2013, are important for demonstrating how you manage information security to external stakeholders, I’ve attempted to focus on assessments that provide a speedier and, in many cases, more contextual picture in this piece. These evaluations are simple to complete and can significantly improve your cybersecurity posture this year:

1. Cyber Essential:

Cyber Essentials (also known as CE) is a government-backed certification program in the United Kingdom that allows businesses to ensure that they are safe from the most common cyber threats and demonstrate their commitment to the cyber security of their business information and sensitive customer data.

It’s important to discuss CE and emphasize that the UK government’s goal is admirable. In most circumstances, ISO 27001 and NIST have been and maybe extremely difficult for micro, small, and medium-sized organizations. This is where Cyber Essentials comes in. Although it is a brief evaluation, it is ‘strong’ and relevant enough to identify major and basic weaknesses that an organization may encounter.

Cyber Essentials (a self-assessment) and Cyber Essentials Plus (a full certification) are the two options (this includes a technical verification). One of the simplest methods to guarantee that your company is protected against the most prevalent cyber threats is to take the Self-Assessment.

Many of the internet’s common/unskilled cyber thieves are seeking easy targets that aren’t protected by Cyber Essentials protections. Once you’ve earned the Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus certification, you’ll have at least some rest of mind knowing that you’re safe against the most prevalent and readily avoidable assaults.

Cyber Essentials is also one of the simplest methods to reassure prospective clients or business partners that they’re dealing with a company dedicated to cybersecurity and that its basic policies are being reviewed.

2. NIST Health Check:

A NIST Health Check is an examination of your organization’s cyber health and resilience against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, as the name implies. NIST Health Checks are usually quick and inexpensive.

The NIST Health Check procedure at Cyber Management Alliance is simple: you will be given a self-assessment form to complete. After that, a cybersecurity specialist is assigned to your company, who goes through the information you’ve provided with you. The expert conducts a high-level evaluation of your significant papers and artifacts over a short time, usually a day, and provides you with a formal assessment report.

Apart from identifying vulnerabilities, the report will emphasize the cybersecurity expert’s view on your overall compliance and incident response maturity. It will also include suggestions for correcting any flaws that demand immediate attention.

The NIST Health Check is appropriate for organizations that wish to get a head start on achieving comprehensive cyber resilience by developing an actionable improvement plan.

3. Ransomware Readiness Assessment:

As the name implies, this evaluation is focused on determining your organization’s capacity to respond to and control a ransomware assault, which is now the number one developing issue in the world of cybersecurity.

A Ransomware Readiness Assessment is the most efficient approach to confirm your security investments and determine whether your IT infrastructure is up to par. It also aids in the identification of flaws in your current ransomware methods, as well as the understanding of particular concerns in your plans and procedures.

This assessment looks at how you address critical technical issues including user access and control, Web Browser Management and DNS Filtering, Patch and Update Management, Application Integrity and Allowlists, Robust Data Backup, and Network Perimeter Monitoring, among others.

Given the exponential growth in ransomware attacks and their very destructive results for businesses, the Ransomware Readiness Assessment is becoming increasingly crucial.

The Assessment is an excellent approach to see if your ransomware preparation matches the dangers, threat actors, and risk mitigation techniques that your company faces. You’ll also get personalized advice on how to improve your detection and response skills.

4. Breach Readiness Assessment:

A Breach Readiness Assessment is a more in-depth, score-based, and focused assessment of your company’s breach readiness capabilities. Its sole purpose is to answer one simple question: Are you ready for a data breach?

This evaluation looks at a specific group of people’s breach readiness and how they behave in a specific cyber-attack scenario aimed at a specific, important asset.

The Breach Readiness Assessment is usually done in combination with a Cyber Crisis Tabletop Exercise. The participants are monitored and assessed against a set of predetermined criteria during the activity.

This cybersecurity risk assessment is a low-cost technique to illustrate how a specific group of employees will behave in the event of a cyber-attack. It’s also critical to meet current and future regulatory obligations with the least amount of downtime possible.

5. SIEM Use Case Assessment:

The SIEM Assessment is a vital cybersecurity assessment that analyzes how your SIEM system is designed and evaluates the operational side of the SOC team.

Use Cases are used to generate alerts for malicious behavior, and the logic and configurations in place must be successful. This important part of your cyber capabilities is also assessed by the SIEM Use Case Assessment. A review of monitoring standards and policies, as well as incident triage, investigations, and analysis, is usually included.

Conducting a SIEM and Use Case Assessment for your company will help you understand how your log management practices correspond with NIST’s Computer Security Incident Handling Guide: NIST SP 800-61 Revision 2.

It can also assist you in determining whether or not your present SIEM setup and settings are adequate.

6. Cyber Incident Response Maturity Assessment:

This is the most in-depth, evidence-based assessment of your organization’s cyber resilience and disaster preparedness.

This cybersecurity evaluation is based on more than simply a stakeholder interview. It checks your SIEM setup, security controls, technology stack implementation, and SOC activities, as well as every in-scope product.

The official report we provide after the Cyber Incident Response Maturity Assessment may provide a thorough picture of the company’s cyber-resilience maturity as assessed against simple NIST-based Incident Handling categories. You may also see how your approach to incident response matches with Annex A.16.1, Incident Management Lifecycle, of ISO 27001:2013.

While your company may engage in a variety of cybersecurity audits and assessments, the ones listed above cover all of the important components of cyber resilience that you should consider.

Regularly doing these evaluations will assure your company’s cybersecurity health and help you stay on track with the correct technology investments and incident response strategies and processes.

To achieve the best outcomes, you’ll need a diverse combination of skills.

What makes a great Project Manager?

Project managers need abilities in a wide range of areas to be truly effective at what they do. Individuals can acquire and improve these abilities in a variety of ways. Training and certification are one alternative.

We look at a few essential abilities that a successful Project Manager should have to ensure that:

• Products and solutions are created to fulfill the needs of all stakeholders to the greatest extent feasible.
• Projects are completed on schedule, on budget, and within budget.
• Stakeholders in the project are successfully handled and engaged.
• Those who will be affected by the project’s deliverables and outcomes are heard and involved.

We are aware that many more abilities are necessary; this is by no means a comprehensive list! Teamwork, empathy, and communication are just a few examples of soft skills that are essential. The presentation emphasizes those that have a direct relationship to APMG and our global network of certified training companies for training and certification (ATOs).