Security teams require effective tools to defend their businesses against ransomware infections as ransomware attacks rise. A good EDR may be integral to this protection, but more is needed.
Look for an EDR that offers full-stack endpoint protection, such as web filtering, next-gen antivirus protection, and application hardening features.
Ensure your EDR includes a search engine capable of quickly searching files, processes, and network activity – this will save your team time when responding to malware attacks.
Detection
Preventing Ransomware from infiltrating your digital assets and encrypting them before attackers do is the cornerstone of successful data recovery, so implementing an EDR solution is vital.
Modern EDR tools monitor endpoints continuously and store all activity data on a central dashboard, which enables security analysts to analyze and investigate behavioral patterns in real-time. When they detect suspicious activity, the software immediately alerts your team and isolates the device – providing time to investigate further and stop further infections from spreading across your network.
EDR solutions possess advanced behavioral detection capabilities, making them effective at recognizing and stopping unknown threats like Ransomware. While traditional signature-based antivirus (AV) solutions rely on known malware tactics, EDR uses machine learning techniques to understand an unknown file’s unique behavior before its attackers execute it.
Your EDR solution includes an EDR Sandboxing feature to allow for safe file testing without jeopardizing the safety of your entire organization. Sandboxed files allow EDR analysis of their attributes and nature to determine whether they may pose threats.
Your EDR can use this data to quickly identify an offending file and prevent it from running again in the future – this feature is especially effective at stopping Ransomware such as Play from bypassing traditional antivirus tools and going undetected.
Containment
Once Ransomware gains access, it usually locks or encrypts your files as part of an attack to force payment from you. Unfortunately, traditional protection practices (such as antivirus and firewall software ) do not stop Ransomware in its tracks.
As cybersecurity expert Robert Zamani pointed out in a blog post, an EDR should provide detection and containment capabilities to protect against ransomware breaches that could become even more costly than originally anticipated. Your EDR should automatically isolate an infected endpoint while blocking its laterally spread across your network, which would lead to further expenses and more ransomware breaches.
Look for an EDR that uses machine learning to establish a baseline of normal file activity in your environment and monitor for changes using heuristics and metadata. This type of EDR can detect Ransomware even when undetected by other tools, stopping attacks before system-wide data encryption occurs, thus decreasing recovery costs, timeframes, legal fees, and customer impacts due to ransomware attacks.
Furthermore, an EDR offering ransomware detection can assist your organization with complying with relevant frameworks and guidelines from CISA, IST, NIST, UK National Cyber Security Centre, Europol, and others to better defend against ransomware attacks.
Implementing measures such as restricting administrator permissions and tightening network segmentation can greatly strengthen protection from ransomware attacks.
Recovery
Most MSPs excel at meeting the first four pillars of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, yet many need to catch up or leave gaps in their plans for ransomware recovery.2 An effective DR solution can ensure faster recoveries with reduced downtime and data loss.
Most attackers employ social engineering tactics to trick victims into downloading and installing malicious files and applications, often disguising them as software updates, security patches, or appealing software downloads. Attackers may also utilize file-sharing platforms or P2P networks to disperse their malware.
Once an attacker gains access, they can start their extortion scheme. Ransomware will begin encrypting files and applications, rendering the system inoperable and demanding payment to decrypt them, often including an expiration date or deadline; some attackers even threaten to make data public if payment isn’t made quickly enough.
An effective defense against Ransomware lies in its prevention from ever occurring in the first place. An advanced XDR solution can stop Ransomware’s spread by detecting suspicious behavior and stopping any malicious processes running on an infected system, while an efficient DR solution allows businesses to quickly return systems to an uninfected state with minimal downtime impacting critical business functions.
Forensics
After being hit by Ransomware, organizations must identify which systems were compromised to restore or recover data. A powerful EDR solution like XcitiumEDR offers powerful search features that quickly locate any malicious files and visibility into network activities and processes on compromised environments allowing threat hunters to analyze and hunt malware more efficiently, thus saving time.
An effective EDR tool should detect unknown malware through machine learning techniques but ensure it uses up-to-date techniques; otherwise, it could mistake normal user activity as malicious behavior and trigger false alerts.
When detecting malware, look for an EDR that provides alerts with reference numbers and plain English descriptions of where an attack took place on an endpoint at that moment, helping your forensics team with context for their analysis.
As more organizations transition to telecom work, organizations of all sizes need an effective EDR solution to protect against ransomware attacks and stop cybercriminals from accessing and compromising data. For more information about effective ransomware defense solutions, please take a look at our free EDR Guide or download this whitepaper by Faisal Habib of Cybereason and Harman Bhogal of Atos; this white paper highlights six features to look out for when selecting an EDR to safeguard against ransomware attacks.