3 Tips to Help You Prevent, Detect and Recover from Ransomware Attacks

The Current State of Ransomware

Many cyberattacks involve ransomware, a form of malicious software or malware, designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid and a decryption key (commonly called a decryptor) is given to the victim. The encryption is virtually unbreakable without the decryption key, and you should not spend valuable time seeking a way around the encryption if you are attacked with it. Ransomware can spread in multiple ways, but most typically, through phishing emails or by unknowingly visiting an infected website. Ransomware can be catastrophic to healthcare (along with many other industries), preventing critical information and systems for patient care from being accessed, for example.

If you thought last year was a challenging year for cyber security, 2022 is proving to be even more difficult. Weekly cyberattacks jumped 42% across the globe this year, according to CheckPoint Research. The list of threats is long: supply chain attacks, ransomware threats, attacks on Costa Rican and Peruvian governments, and the fallout of perhaps one of the most serious zero-day vulnerabilities in history, Log4j, followed by the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war.

There are good reasons most large enterprises worldwide are quickly adopting the cloud for everything from sales contracts and product specs to videos and overall business operations. The cloud offers flexible, scalable, and cost-effective computing that cuts down IT costs, consolidates data centers, accelerates growth and enables digital transformation. Migration to the cloud has accelerated in the post-pandemic hybrid work world and more recently as companies battle inflation and rising real estate costs.

The City of Henderson, Nevada, serves 320,000 residents. ConvergeOne became the city’s go-to networking partner after supporting a firewall transition, assisting with training, implementation and long-term strategic planning for leveraging new technologies. ConvergeOne also helped set up rapid deployment kits that allowed the city’s emergency management and safety department to quickly and efficiently deploy COVID testing and inoculation centers.

“Having rapid deployment kits and partnering with ConvergeOne made us able to be heroes for city management and the activities that they want to do, and for our office of emergency management and safety to be able to deploy rapidly,” said Jared Hansen, IT Infrastructure Manager, City of Henderson, Nevada.

Have you noticed that more and more automation is finding its way into our daily lives? Think of all the new (or near-new) conveniences we have available to us. Home appliances, self-checkout, consumer electronics, entertainment, medical devices and smart buildings help us every day. In a recent blog post, I talked about IVAs (Intelligent Virtual Agents), which are deployed widely to enhance the customer experience by streamlining and handling the customer need immediately, with little to no human intervention.

When ConvergeOne held a Ransomware Readiness event for public sector customers, it was well-attended, with a large number of representatives from our manufacturer partners and K-12, Higher Education, and City customers. There was nothing in the event to entice the folks to sign up and attend, like say a golf outing, a basketball game in the stadium, or lunch/dinner at a high-end restaurant. It was simply in our offices in Ontario, CA.

This article originally appeared in VentureBeat.

“Why should I replace my IVR with an IVA?” I’m starting to hear that question a lot from companies that I work with on a regular basis, so I’d like to address the question more broadly.

This article originally appeared in Security Magazine.

The past two years have seen a drastic shift in the way we work, with many organizations having to quickly make the move from an office-based environment to a hybrid work environment. Now, with hybrid ways of working becoming standard, leaders are focusing on digitally transforming their businesses to adapt to and compete in the new normal. Yet in the rush to adjust, they can forget a foundational and business-critical issue – cyber security.

While there is no question that supply chain issues have emptied the whole toolbox into our collective gears, upending the most well-laid plans, this doesn't have to be the whole story: there is a silver lining to be found if you look for it.