Defending against Crypto-Ransomware Threats

Crypto-ransomware is a growing crime problem for everyone who uses the Internet – including small businesses, of course.

You’ve probably heard about this form of malware before, but as a reminder, it tricks you into downloading the ransomware onto your PC via spam with links that take you to a fake website that often looks like a real website of a bank or government agency.

When you unknowingly download the malware onto your system by doing some innocuous task like entering a CAPTCHA (a program that protects against bots) passcode, the ransomware immediately encrypts your files, preventing you from accessing them, and then demands that you pay a ransom, usually in bitcoins, to decrypt the files.

In short, as Daniel Dunkel of crypto-ransomware states in his Simply Security blog, “It’s kidnapping information and extorting money from the vulnerable, technology-dependent citizens of society.”

The Best Way to Avoid Ransomware

Backing up your important files is part of a good anti-ransomware strategy in case this happens to you or someone on your staff.  Additionally, Trend Micro has a ransomware cleanup tool to use if you want to get rid of the offending malware. However, the best way to avoid the wasted time and aggravation that comes with a crypto-ransomware attack is to be protected by solutions like Trend Micro™ Worry-Free™ Business Security.

For years, we have been expanding our security beyond simple signature-based malware detection, though we still block over 1.4 billion malicious items per month using this technique. Today, we employ behavioral monitoring techniques with enhancements to detect, prevent, and clean ransomware before it can do any damage to our customers’ files.

Here are some of the ways our solutions safeguard customers from crypto-ransomware:

Leverage Trend Micro’s Web Reputation Service to protect against malicious links Leave known good processes in place (based on a cloud whitelist and local exception list) to avoid false-positives Scan with our existing security to identify recognizable malware (at the file level with signature or smaller fragments based on unpacking/memory inspection) Flag suspicious items that are unknown based on data from the Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Network™ infrastructure Look for patterns of unusual or malicious activity, especially where unknown applications are encrypting or modifying files Terminate and quarantine the process of any detected ransomware activity, dramatically limiting encryption and/or loss of data

from Trend Micro Simply Security http://ift.tt/1NAR4f0
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