How to protect against ransomware

Ransomware drains billions from the global economy each year and shows no signs of slowing down. The highest cost of a ransomware attack is no longer the ransom itself. Today, the bulk of the financial damage consists of downtime, tarnished reputations, and regulatory fines.

Ransomware has quickly become one of the most feared and virulent threats in business environments. Ironically, its main cost is not the rescue itself, but the downtime it causes, so it is not surprising that only one-third of companies believe they would recover from a ransomware attack without significant losses.

Amateur hackers have amassed fortunes thanks to this crypto-viral extortion scheme. But things are beginning to change. Today’s advanced criminals are putting the original small crooks to shame. This paper analyzes the evolution of attackers’ methodology and the industries and geographical areas targeted most by ransomware in 2018.

Highlights:

• Obfuscation through sophistication – ransomware operators are becoming better at their craft

• Healthcare in the crosshairs – SamSam made a headline almost every week in H1 2018 as it infected healthcare institutions

• GandCrab – the most prevalent ransomware threat in operation, with a 50% share

• Bitdefender GandCrab decryptors – recovered data for more than 21,000 victims, saving an estimated $30 million in ransom money

• Ransomware stats over a two-year period – 2017 to 2019

• Defending your digital infrastructure – how to combat the evolving ransomware threat with a multi-layered defensive framework

How does Zonealarm anti ransomware protect against ransomware?

Being an adaptive layered security solution, Zonealarm anti ransomware provides various possibilities against ransomware, with all its layers working in unison for prevention, detection, and repair.

PREVENTION

Antimalware with machine learning

The solution is automatically trained based on a billion samples from more than five hundred million endpoints around the world. No matter how much malware or ransomware changes, Bitdefender can accurately detect new ransomware patterns, both at runtime and previously.

Advanced anti-exploit Ransomware

creators often use exploit kits that take advantage of patchless or zero-day vulnerabilities to establish a bridgehead in systems. By focusing on attack techniques, Bitdefender protects your systems and prevents the spread of ransomware.

EARLY DETECTION

Real-time

process monitoring GravityZone monitors running processes, such as modifying registry keys or reading, writing and encrypting file actions, and slows down ransomware activity.

REPAIR / CLEANING

The solution has the ability to close a malicious process, reverse changes and clean up.