In the first article in our series on ransomware we talked about the importance of having a backup to ensure that you can recover your data in the event of an attack.
In this second blog we’re going to look at the ransomware attack loop and what can be done to stop it.
A ransomware attack loop is where the attacker has managed to inject the malicious code into your systems but it’s not been detonated yet. As a result you’ve been backing up the malware for weeks or even months without realising it. When the time comes to detonate, boom! it goes off, you attempt to restore your backup thinking you’re safe, only to discover that the backups are encrypted, have already been deleted or are infected by the malware, so the ransom demands start all over again.
Cyber criminals use attack loops to target companies that are failing to check that their backups are free of malware. They corrupt the backup files so when the ransomware activation date arrives the infected data is restored to the main system, bringing the ransomware back into play to start encrypting or even deleting files. The organisation ends up in a destructive circle of doom which it can only escape from by paying up and meeting the ransom demand.
With new ransomware variants increasingly targeting backups specifically, backup solutions are evolving to make it harder for the malware to identify and delete backup data.
Our Backup as a Service solution has evolved to provide advanced protection against ransomware attack loops. For instance, it includes two-factor authentication, which means that anyone looking to delete backup data from repositories needs to have approval from another person in the company – a second authentication – to be able to complete the process. As ransomware tends to be activated by software, this confuses it and stops it from being able to detonate.
As ransomware authors continue to get more creative in attacking business data, iomart can ensure you have the best protection so you can restore clean data if you are targeted. We have been protecting data for customers for twenty years.
Our Backup as a Service solution has been developed to backup data securely, effectively and efficiently and to scale according to your business requirements.