How to protect yourself from malware and ransomware attacks

The rapidly changing landscape for business has changed cybersecurity dramatically. The shift to remote and cloud-based work has meant that employee identities and devices are no longer behind the locked and monitored perimeter, providing the perfect beachhead for attacks. This is a key reason ransomware attacks have grown exponentially, and it’s now estimated that a new ransomware attack takes place every 11 seconds in 2021. (FBI)

While ransomware has gained everyone’s attention, these types of malware only represent between 5% to 21% of all malware attacks.

Malware, or malicious software, is any piece of software that was written with the intent of harming systems, organizations, or people. Types of malware include computer viruses, trojans, spyware, ransomware, adware, worms, file-less malware, or hybrids of the above.

Ransomware has managed to achieve our attention and celebrity status among malware because it represents the modern-day bank heist. Ransomware encrypts a victim’s files, and the attacker then demands a ransom from the victim to restore access to the data upon payment. The costs can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands and are usually payable to cybercriminals in Bitcoin to avoid detection. The estimated cost of ransomware to business in 2021 is $6 Trillion annually.

Alexander Poizner, founder of Parabellyx Cybersecurity provides a Ransomware Tutorial on how to protect your company and maintain resiliency to stay operational if you come under an attack.