Ransomware Protection Resolutions for 2022

2021 was quite an eventful year, in terms of ransomware attacks. It will go down in history as a challenging year, thanks to the extra contribution of the ongoing pandemic.

2021 has been especially tough for IT professionals and cybersecurity experts. 2021 saw a rapid increase in ransomware attacks from last year. Businesses need to assess their vulneraries and must strengthen their security.

In this article, we highlight some ransomware protection resolutions for 2022. Businesses can follow these to make sure that this year is better than the last year. In terms of data security at least.

Employee Training is Just as Important as Cyber Security- Train Your Employees Well

For any business, employees are one of its assets and also vulnerabilities. People are not wrong when they that, after customers, employees can make or break a business.

It usually takes a single compromised password to bring down a whole organization. This makes employees the first line of defense against ransomware. So, this makes it very important that employees are given proper cyber security training sessions on and off.

Employees must be able to recognize any suspicious emails that may be phishing emails. These phishing emails, if gained access to the system, can infect them with the ransomware virus.

Usually, senior employees are targeted for phishing emails but this is not entirely true. Junior employees and new joiners also get targeted. This is why it is important to train every employee on distinguishing phishing emails and how to deal with them.

Now, this can be a difficult thing to do. Ransomware attacks and phishing emails these days have become very advanced and sophisticated. It is difficult to identify them. In fact, many cyber security experts struggle with phishing emails.

Yet, training is still important as it decreases the chances of being infected with ransomware.

Trainings can be done after a few months or after 6 months, whichever suits the business well. There is no hard and fast rule to this.

It is a great idea to keep the whole staff up to date. Staff needs to be aware about ransomware and recent ransomware news. This can be done with company newsletters, emails and social media posts.

Improve Cyber Hygiene Habits

Improving the cyber hygiene habits of the company is also very important. It is recommended to regularly scan for vulnerabilities. This way, companies can identify security gaps and address them in time.

Ransomware variants take advantage of the vulnerabilities and the security gaps. So, by fixing these security issues beforehand, you can get much better ransomware protection. Thus, reducing the risk of ransomware.

Organizations should also take this opportunity to make sure that their Operating Systems (OS) are up to date. This also includes all the applications and software that they use. Organizations should also establish a process that automatically updates everything regularly.

This way, the organization would be able to close the security gaps. They can reduce the risk of ransomware. Regular updates can include security updates patches as well. These are helpful in fighting and identifying different ransomware variants.

Strengthen Your End Points

Strengthening the endpoints of the organization is also very important. This task has been made more challenging with the addition of remote and mobile workforces. This is why, it is important to carefully put configuration settings in place. These settings will ensure that the organization faces limited threats. This will also close the security gaps that may exist in default configurations.

Update Your Backup & Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan

There is no point in following all the security tips mentioned above if the organization does not update their backup and DR plan. Updating the backup and DR plan goes a long way in ensuring protection from ransomware.

Make sure that your backup and DR plan is reviewed once every few weeks or at least once a month. This constant review will push to you to keep updating your backup and DR plan. This will also fix the vulnerabilities and the security gaps of your organization.

One recommended plan is to follow the new 3-2-1-1 backup rule. This is an updated version of the original 3-2-1 plan which most of us are familiar with.

The new 3-2-1-1 backup plan states that there should be thee copies of data. It should be stored on 2 different storage media. 1 copy should be stored offsite in a secure cloud storage. The extra 1 is for immutability.

Immutability is when your data is converted to a write-once, read-many format. This means that data that is once written cannot be altered or even deleted. This is a critical element of successful ransomware protection.

When your data is backed up to immutable storage, can you can be worry-free. You can count on recovery from any disaster and this can give you the utmost ransomware protection which is needed these days.

So, immutability should definitely be in your ransomware protection resolution plan for 2022.

Test Your Backup & DR Plan

Updating your backup plan was just one step. You need to keep testing your plan on regular basis to ensure that your plan is working as required. Especially after you have made changes to it. This way, you can identify any failures and gaps. And can also rectify them before actual recovery of data is needed.

Get a Backup Appliance

Getting a backup appliance for ransomware protection, such as Veeam backup appliance, is best thing you can do for your organization.

A backup appliance can not only ensure ransomware protection but can also protect your data from all sources and incidents of data loss. This includes, natural disaster, human error, hardware failure and more. This is because a backup appliance offers many exciting features. Such as anti-ransomware, immutable snapshots, air-gapped backups, WORM (Write Once Read Many) and much more.

Not only this but with a backup appliance, you can get very low Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). This helps greatly in achieving business continuity as organizations can get back up and running quickly.

In Conclusion

Ransomware attacks will only get worse in the coming year. Being prepare beforehand is the only way organizations can protect against it. By following the tips and resolutions mentioned in this article, organizations can achieve this goal.

So, make sure to follow these resolutions in the coming year and keep improvising and updating every year. This will help you fight the war against ransomware.