Keeping a business at the top of their game requires significant time and resources, especially when aiming to stand out in increasingly competitive industries. However, a business’s ability to succeed today requires more than great marketing strategies and a strong team.

Cybersecurity remains an essential element that all businesses need to master. The reality is that there are countless threats just below the surface, with cybercriminals always looking for their next victim. Ransomware attacks, for example, affect hundreds of thousands of businesses every year, and new strains of malware are becoming harder and harder to combat.

Understanding this severity is the first step to ensuring your business builds a resilient cybersecurity posture that not only protects itself from these attacks but is also better equipped to bounce back in the event of a successful breach.

Below are some practical strategies you can follow to ensure this is the case for your business.

Know How to Focus Your Efforts

The first step to defending your organization from ransomware attacks is knowing how to identify its attack surfaces. Unfortunately, many businesses that are hit with ransomware are caught completely off guard and are left scrambling to deal with the aftermath. However, if you look closer at all ransomware attacks, there are often various clues that allude to an attack taking place.

One of the most effective ways to identify a malware injection attempt is to look for spikes in your network traffic, especially those that are outside of normal timelines. Many times, these unusual peaks are a result of attackers poking around networks, testing different attack vectors and scanning for vulnerabilities.

However, it’s important to think outside the box when evaluating your security risks as well. For example, most businesses have a large network of third-party suppliers they work with. Each of these partnerships can open up new potential attack points that hackers can try to exploit. If you’re not careful about the type of companies you choose to partner with, their lack of security precautions could quickly become your own organization’s problem to deal with.

Quarantine as Soon as Possible

Speed is your ally when it comes to cybersecurity response. The faster you’re able to identify and react when met with a new threat, the less damage your business is likely to face. At the early stages of a cyberattack, you must have systems in place that can quickly and efficiently isolate the attack site, enabling your response teams to fully diagnose the issue while limiting exposure to connected applications or systems.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are a crucial part of this process. These automated systems regularly scan networks in real time, gathering intel that could indicate a potential attack. If they detect these anomalies, they’ll execute various pre-programmed actions to slow or quarantine an attack while giving security teams the necessary context to further analyze and mitigate the risks.

Carry out an Incident Assessment

Once you’ve successfully identified and closed off a security breach attempt, recreating an attacker's methods is critical to strengthening your security approach moving forward. Incident assessments allow you to methodically walk through each step an attacker took to gain access to user credentials or penetrate business networks. This gives you a much more comprehensive understanding of potential gaps in your security as well as a better understanding of the overall damage you’re dealing with.

An important part of this analysis is also researching and identifying the type of malware you may be dealing with. Many times, malware strains can linger in a system well after an attack is quarantined. If not dealt with properly, it’s possible that they can still cause system disruptions or potentially leave backdoors open for attackers to exploit later on down the road.

Research Any Legal Requirements

Understanding the legal fallout from a breach is very important. In the aftermath of a ransomware attack, it’s critical to have a clear view of the specific legal or compliance obligations your business must meet. 

Across industries, strict guidelines dictate how companies should handle cyber threats and communicate their aftermath to employees, customers, and the public. Even if you cannot definitively prove whether client data was accessed or stolen, many compliance frameworks still mandate that you disclose certain information about the timing and scope of a potential breach.

Becoming familiar with these requirements well before you’re ever faced with a cyber breach hit allows you to maintain clear, compliant protocols as you address the situation.

Connect With Professional Security Services

Cyber defense strategies are always evolving in response to new emerging threats and technologies. Because of this, being able to keep pace is critical to reducing your overall risks. This is where partnering with professional security services can be really helpful.

Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and penetration testing services offer a sustainable way for growing businesses to expand their security capabilities without the major investment of hiring a large in-house team. 

These specialized services and solutions provide you with immediate access to relevant cybersecurity expertise by highly skilled personnel who are already using the most advanced security tools available.

Consider Each of Your Options for Data Recovery

To help ensure a successful recovery in the wake of a ransomware attack, you need a complete picture of every available method for restoring your operations to a secure, functional state. Ideally, your business has already been performing frequent backups of all essential information and programs. Having these duplicates ready to go lets you launch a thorough data retrieval process the moment a disaster strikes.

The most critical situation you can face is realizing your recent backups are missing, or even worse, that the attack compromised them, too. While some companies might be tempted to pay the ransom at this point, that choice should almost never be taken seriously. Agreeing to the attackers' demands offers zero assurance that your files will be returned and only makes it more likely you'll be targeted again.

When you're faced with these difficult situations, your most reliable course of action is to call in expert data recovery firms. They are equipped to guide you through the viable choices while helping you to better understand the expenses and projected time frames for a complete system recovery.

Executing Restoration Efforts Methodically

Once you've determined the most effective approach to bringing your systems back online, it's time to implement your restoration plan. This is where having a highly detailed and documented recovery strategy in place becomes essential. That document should also identify which employees are essential to the recovery process and have detailed instructions on how they should prioritize their efforts.

You'll want to make sure you’re working closely with both your in-house staff and any outside vendors when executing various recovery steps, focusing first on the areas that are most vital to your business.

Your primary objective at this stage is to quickly return your organization's operations to a stable condition while making sure all traces of malware are safely removed. 

Build More Cyber Resilience In Your Business

Ransomware poses a genuine risk that demands serious attention from every organization. But despite the risks, it doesn’t mean it needs to be an ongoing source of anxiety for your business.

By knowing what to look for and establishing proactive strategies to safeguard your systems, you'll be well-equipped to manage this and any subsequent security issues that come your way.

About the Author: Nazy Fouladirad is President and COO of Tevora, a global leading cybersecurity consultancy. She has dedicated her career to creating a more secure business and online environment for organizations across the country and world. She is passionate about serving her community and acts as a board member for a local nonprofit organization.

Source of Top Image:  Image by u_etaflffuni from Pixabay