Table of Contents
- Ransomware Is a Result of Attack Escalation
- Web-Based Assaults Serve To Spread Ransomware
- More Criminals Aim for the Cloud
- Organizations Withhold Information About Attacks
In recent years, ransomware has become a significant threat for many enterprises. Many of them, conscious of this circumstance, focus their efforts on safeguarding themselves against this category of danger. Consequently, their expenditures for online security are sometimes reduced. Unfortunately for them, this makes their IT systems less secure against ransomware.
To prevent ransomware, you must prioritize web security for the following important reasons:
Ransomware Is a Result of Attack Escalation
Ransomware is not the attack itself but a consequence of the actual attack.
If ransomware were a disease, it would be a virus or bacterium. Once the virus or bacterium enters the host’s body, it multiplies and infects the whole system – sometimes with deadly outcomes. Once ransomware has infiltrated the system, it can be hard to halt it.
However, just as germs and viruses do not spontaneously spread from one host to another, ransomware acts similarly; it must be introduced into the system in some way. And at this time, the most effective defensive mechanisms are in place, preventing ransomware from accessing the system in the first place.
Similar to germs and viruses, ransomware can be distributed by several methods. For instance, a bacterium or a virus may spread by contact or saliva droplets. Similarly, ransomware may be transmitted by phishing, social engineering or by exploiting system weaknesses. Nowadays, the majority of such vulnerabilities are web-based.
Conclusion: To stay safe from ransomware, you should focus on keeping your systems safe from attacks that can be used to send ransomware to them. Once ransomware is on your computer, it can’t be removed.
Web-Based Assaults Serve To Spread Ransomware
People think that phishing and social engineering are the most common ways to spread ransomware. But phishing is often made possible by common web flaws like cross-site scripting (XSS). Because of these holes, attackers can use well-known domain names (like your business name) to attack your employees and other people.
Just imagine that your web app has an XSS vulnerability. This lets the attacker send your employees a link to your website with your domain name. But if your employee visited this domain, he or she would automatically be sent to a malicious download site where a ransomware installer would be downloaded. Do you think such a trick won’t fool your workers? Think again.
Even worse, the attacker could use your weak web application to attack your business partners, customers, or even the general public. This would show everyone how weak your system is and inflict irreparable damage to your reputation. If you don’t want this to happen, ensure that none of your systems using your web addresses have XSS vulnerabilities.
Conclusion: Phishing attacks can be used against your organization, your partners, your clients, or even the general public if your website has flaws. This could hurt your reputation in a way that can’t be fixed.
More Criminals Aim for the Cloud
Ransomware can be sent to the target system in several ways, most of which take advantage of weaknesses. Previously, most of these security holes were in on-premise systems. For example, out-of-date software or improperly set up local networks could cause network security holes. After the recent pandemic, many businesses moved to remote work; now, on-premise networks are losing even more ground.
The cloud is taking the place of these on-premise networks. Everything about the cloud is based on web technologies. Thus, the move to the cloud is linked to web vulnerabilities becoming more important. Vulnerabilities which used to affect only marketing websites, for example, can now affect business-critical systems and data.
The people who make ransomware also keep up with the times. They know that it’s no longer enough for a bad encryptor to crawl through a local network and infect computers and servers on that network. They know that more and more victims use thin clients (web browsers) to access data stored in the cloud these days. So, they know they need to take advantage of more and more holes in the web and cloud to ensure their ransomware software works best.
Conclusion: Most companies use or migrate to the cloud, rendering network security outdated. Today, network security is useless without web security.
Organizations Withhold Information About Attacks
It’s difficult to know how to protect your business from ransomware because most businesses affected don’t discuss what they did to resolve the problem. They just tell the public they’ve been attacked by ransomware and leave it at that.
Such behaviour is understandable. First, organizations which are attacked might not be able to fix their security problems immediately. Second, organizations are afraid to share details about attack vectors because doing so could make them more vulnerable to other attacks. Third, many organizations think that if they admit their mistakes, it will hurt their reputation.
Unfortunately, this behaviour slows down the development of good security methods (and hurts IT security around the world as a whole). This could be compared to a country with a deadly virus which didn’t want to discuss it for political reasons.
Conclusion: If you don’t tell other businesses how ransomware gets into your systems, it’s harder for them to avoid getting it.
To learn more about web security, visit cyberhunter.solutions online or call us at (833) CYBHUNT today.
