Cybersecurity Simplified: Ransomware

Ransomware is malicious software that blocks access to a computer system or files unless a sum of money is paid.

Ransomware twists the power of encryption against you.  Encryption should protect your data and files, but ransomware uses it to take files hostage. This means being locked out of your documents, spreadsheets, photos and videos, backups, and other important files.  Plus, an infected PC can spread the ransomware to other computers on your network.

Example scenario

An employee receives an email from a friend.  It includes a link to a video that shows how to make heart shapes out of boiled eggs using chopsticks.  Intrigued, your employee follows the link and is asked to click Run.

Later that day, everything on their screen starts changing colors, and a window appears informing them that all the files on the computer have been hijacked and encrypted.

They won’t be able to access anything, unless they pay a ransom.  If they choose to not pay, they may never get access to the files again.

Crestwood Cloud Protection from Ransomware

We have run into many instances of ransomware with our clients.  The ones using our Crestwood Cloud services experienced no downtime and no loss of business.  Our Crestwood Cloud is built on premium Microsoft cloud services and Crestwood is a certified cloud solution provider.

On-premise or in the cloud

Whether you have on-premise servers, or your systems are in the cloud, Crestwood offers a simple and low-cost, monthly backup service that can save your business.  We take daily backups and securely store them away from attackers and they can be restored within a matter of minutes.  Not all cloud or routine backups have the point in time restore options to go back before a ransomware attack.

At Crestwood we use the Azure Recovery Services Vault.  This service was designed for these kind of attacks.

1. First, backups are not accessible to the machine that was backed up. So, if your machine gets compromised, the attackers cannot get to your backups.  Think of it like the old days, when we did tape backups and moved them offsite.
2. Second, if your entire Azure tenant gets compromised, you can only submit a request to delete a backup. There are extra verification steps taken to get to your backups.
3. Third, Recovery Services Vault is geo-redundant, so there are at least 6 copies of your backups in different locations at all times.

Secure your business now

You might not be ready to move everything to the cloud today, but Crestwood can give you peace of mind by securing your data with our backup services.  We take backups of your on-premise machines, and move those to the Recovery Services Vault (in the cloud).  Then if you’re a victim of an attack,  you have peace of mind.  One simple phone call and you’re back-up in business within minutes.  Contact us today to get set up.