Ransomware is a kind of malicious attack that is devised for blocking access to data, theoretically, till you pay the demanded amount of money. The term 'theoretically' is used because cyber criminals are never obliged to decrypt your files even when you pay the ransom amount. So, you may lose all your data even after giving away a considerable sum of money.

There exists no 100% assurance of immunity against ransomware. However, you still have the possibility to dodge from getting affected in many cases. Typically, the most reasonable strategy is to ensure that you do not click on suspicious links, must double-check the contents of the emails you get, never click pop-up windows displaying ads or dubious ad banners on websites, have a substantial backup & recovery tool in place, and maintain systems up to date with timely patching.

In order to secure your backups from ransomware, you can readily make use of the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule, enforce immutable backups, employ several cloud storages, construct sound retention settings, limit access to data backups, and keep a watch on network activity & performance.

Typically, ransomware can affect the systems through two different paths. The first is via email and the second is through dubious links on websites, web pages, or fake ads. These techniques basically cause the target to click the displayed link or download the sent attachment on his/her mail. As a result, the malicious software that is contained in the file or link gets installed, and the infected domain of the code encrypts the entire data.

At the Serverwala data center, we implement the following approach toward remediating ransomware -

You are supposed to pay the ransom amount. Instead, the only option you need to enforce is restoring the data. You may possess considerable knowledge and expertise in the implementation techniques that one makes use of for staying resilient against ransomware. However, it is essential that you make yourself ready in advance with your defense against a ransomware incident in case any security threat pops up. Further, there are times when you are required to do things that you might have not thought of executing during the detection of a threat. Mentioned below listed are some critical suggestions for remediation you should opt for during the arrival of a ransomware incident -

SERVERWALA SUPPORT

There exists a particular team under the Serverwala data center, which functions specifically for guiding the customers in the data restoration process during ransomware incidents. You certainly do not wish to risk your data backups under such incidents. Therefore, our team support becomes highly crucial for your proficiency to recover the whole data.

COMMUNICATION FIRST

During the time of destructive incidents, communication comes as the first and foremost challenge. You must follow a strategy that helps you communicate out-of-band with the right entities. Such a strategy can incorporate calling numbers, group text lists, and other mechanisms that are normally employed for on-call, while, extended for an exclusive IT operations team.

SPECIALISTS

You must maintain a list of teams that operate for protection, identity administration, incident response, etc. so you can contact them right away as and when required. These contacts can fall within the enterprise or external specialists. Further, at the Serverwala data center, you obtain access to additional value add-ons from where you can take effective assistance under such situations.

CHAIN OF DECISION

You must construct a chain of decision authority beforehand that determines who makes the call for data restoration, who handles the failure, and so on during the process of recovering from any disaster. This enables you to enforce a chain of decision that is absolutely ready to deploy when any incident happens.

READY TO RESTORE

When everything is set for data or system restoration, you must execute supplementary safety checks before you put the systems on the network again. These additional checks can comprise restoring with network access disabled for a final check.

RESTORE SAFELY

Serverwala Secure Restore assures to trigger an image antivirus scan before the restoration terminates. It makes use of the latest antivirus as well as malware definitions with the prospect of a supplemental tool. This helps in assuring that a threat in no way is reintroduced.

FORCE PASSWORD RESETS

While it is not really prevalent among users, you must execute a sweeping forced change of passwords in order to eliminate the surface area of threat propagation.

Our backup products are well renowned for being straightforward, highly flexible, and steadfast. This brings resilience to your efforts. Under any unfortunate ransomware attack, you can easily figure out how you must execute the backup infrastructure solution, the conduct of the threat, and the path you should pick while remediating the threat.

Here are some guidelines you can employ for discovering implementation for ransomware resiliency -

Safeguard the Serverwala Backup & Replication™ server as well as its components

Executing Serverwala credentials for ransomware detection

Network-Attached Storage (NAS) guard

Ultra-resilient backup storage & the 3-2-1 Rule

Multiple recovery strategies configuration

Endpoint security

Serverwala encryption of backup data

Orchestrating recoveries of backups & replicas.