BUSINESS SURVEILLANCE

The shift to remote working has triggered an eye-watering amount of ransomware attacks in recent months and business leaders must ensure they have the correct tools in place to secure their organisations . Keith Glancey , Systems Engineering Manager , Western Europe at Infoblox , discusses the rise in ransomware attacks and how organisations can protect themselves against cybercriminals .

Ransomware is nothing new . However , it has once again dominated the headlines in recent months as several high-profile companies in different sectors have found themselves falling victim to attacks . With the recent attacks on the UK arm of Salvation Army , Ireland ’ s Health Service Executive and JBS – the world ’ s largest meat processor – it ’ s clear that ransomware has far-reaching consequences for society as a whole .

While this recent rise in attacks has a number of causes , COVID-19 in particular has presented threat actors with new opportunities , particularly as employees have largely moved to remote working .

The biggest challenge with remote work is that employees are working on relatively less-secured wireless networks , on personal devices ( where they can mix business with personal use ) and in environments where they are surrounded by a growing number of other , less secure IoT devices . These factors all provide attackers with a growing number of vectors through which they can infiltrate the expanded corporate network , and cybercriminals are taking advantage .

Is ransomware more of a problem for enterprises or high net worth individuals ?

While enterprises are typically more secure than a high net worth individual – and should have teams and tools in place to protect their data – their multiple layers of employees and network connections make them bigger targets . Cybercriminals get more opportunities to set up malware that can infiltrate the system .

Enterprises also typically make more attractive targets , given how valuable their data is to multiple stakeholders – including employees , business leaders and customers .

With so many security tools at our disposal , how do cybercriminals continue to hack so effectively ?

Put simply , ransomware continues to be so effective because it ’ s easy and lucrative . To add to this , the threat actors behind it continue to innovate at scale . Remote working has opened up many new avenues for them to explore and manipulate , including insecure Wi-Fi connections , mass document sharing via unapproved cloud folders and browsers with insecure plugins . Left unprotected , these areas pose a significant risk to corporate networks .

Meanwhile , research shows that email is responsible for 75 – 90 % of malware delivered to organisations . Despite awareness training and widespread warnings against spam , users continue to open suspicious emails , both in their business and personal accounts .

They also click on malicious email attachments and URLs , and view websites not generally associated with business use . In addition to human behaviour , the rise of Ransomwareas-a-Service is making it easier ( and cheaper ) for bad actors to launch these campaigns .

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