Hollywood Presbyterian, Methodist Hospital (Kentucky), Medstar….who will be the next hospital to be crippled by ransomware?

While not a new threat, ransomware has been top of news lately with these high-profile breaches. Hospitals and healthcare organizations are especially attractive targets for cyber criminals, as they must provide timely, high-quality patient care—lives depend on it.

The threat actors involved, malware deployed, and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used have all gotten more sophisticated over the past year. In 2016, we’ve seen the emergence of ransomware designed to remain stealthy on the network longer, that targets servers and critical data as opposed to just infecting a host and encrypting all it’s files and file shares. As with other malware, it’s a cat and mouse game between network defenders and attackers. Read below for strategies to help your organization defend against ransomware.

Adequate protection against ransomware requires several key strategies:

• Know where your business-critical information is
• Backup critical data regularly, including offline copies
• Reduce your exposure to common infection vectors (web drive-by, phishing, etc)
• Provide regular security awareness training for your users and conduct regular spear phishing exercises with training embedded if users fall for the phish

One proven strategy for reducing exposure is endpoint hardening which can dramatically reduce risk for organizations by reducing their attack surface by as much 90-95% (depending on the solution deployed).

To learn more about Cloudburst Security and how our offerings and strategic partnerships can help your organization defend against ransomware and other cyber attacks, email us at: info@cloudburstsecurity.com