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When you hear the term “Cyber Pirates” I hope that a dashing image of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow coding at a desktop monitor doesn’t come to mind. In fact, cyber pirates are more threatening (and possibly more composed) when it comes to their method of pirating.
More now than ever before, Cyber Pirates are using RansomWare to hold companies’ most important assets hostage, while releasing confidential information to the public. These attacks are happening all over the globe and amongst companies of all sizes. You might have read about the HBO hack that happened just a few weeks ago where hackers who used the same software accessed and leaked confidential information about upcoming television shows.
So what exactly is RansomWare, and how can you detect and prevent the attacks from happening to your company?
RansomWare is a malicious software that holds business websites hostage or threatens to release sensitive data to the public for a handsome fee. Cyber pirates will utilize a variety of avenues including emails, network traffic, user behavior and application traffic to insert RansomWare. These types of attacks are typically carried out using a “Trojan” that is disguised as a legitimate file. For example, the Trojan might be an innocent looking email from your boss instructing you to check out pertinent information. Unknowingly you click the link, because you trust the source. But once you click the link, it activates the download of the malware and the hacker can encrypt your files until you supply the bounty.
According to a recent article published by Barracuda.com, “ a Ransomware variant will infect between 30,000 to 35,000 devices a month, with some variants reaching up to 150,000 infections.” However, most of these attacks can be prevented. Follow our guidelines below to keep your website safe so you don’t become one of the statistics.
Although we always recommend first that you prevent threats before they happen, sometimes this isn’t always feasible. We also offer website maintenance and support to repair websites after they have been hacked. Take a look at our Top 9 must do’s to keep your website running optimally while guarding it against any potential threats.
1. Run daily, weekly or monthly backups of all of your files. If a cyber attack occurs you want to ensure that you can recover the website from the most recent version.
2. Host your website on a secure server. Our dedicated servers provide our clients with a variety of weapons to fight cyber security attacks. These include Firewall Protection, Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus Protection, HTTP Intrusion Protection, Daily security audits and more that all monitor threats and prevent them from attacking the website.
3. Always make sure that you have an SSL certificate for your website., to initiate a secure session with browsers. Websites with SSL certificates have the “Secure” stamp of approval in the URL, also known as HTTP.
4. No website is self-sustainable, make sure to update your plugins. New plugins are constantly being rolled out to patch old bugs and potential vulnerabilities. So keeping your website backend up to date is instrumental in guarding it against possible threats.
5. Use Strong Passwords and 2-Factor Authentication: Making sure that your website password is complex and updated bi-monthly and you have dual authentication for website access is crucial.
6. Make sure to blacklist all bad or suspicious IP’s.
7. Make sure to whitelist all trustworthy IP’s.
8. Daily Attack Monitoring.- Sign up with a hosting and support company that offers Daily Attack Monitoring so that you know the exact moment when an attack is occurring. Responding quickly to an attack can be a deal breaker.
9. Most importantly, be aware of suspicious emails, websites, and apps. In order for RansomeWare to work some has to unknowingly download malware onto their device.
For more information on how to keep your website safe and secure from those digital pirates, contact us through our live chat option or click here to fill out our contact form and we can create the right Maintenance and Security package for you.
