Become Proactive with a Ransomware Readiness Assessment

While many dangers threaten the cybersecurity efforts of organizations, the sheer disruptive power of ransomware remains the biggest threat to businesses today. A forward-thinking mindset is necessary to face this threat. Evaluating and enhancing your ability to quickly detect and effectively respond to a ransomware attack is essential and conducting a ransomware readiness assessment is the best way to prepare for this crisis before it arrives on your doorstep. 

Risk assessments are nothing new. Many businesses use them as part of their general business strategy, and they are essential components in creating comprehensive cybersecurity plans. In general, risk assessments check on the fundamentals, such as identifying the potential likelihood of digital threats or technical failures.  

Ransomware readiness assessments do this as well, but delve deeper to gauge preparedness for ransomware-specific threats and how they can impact your business. For instance, it’s critical to gauge how well your organization can limit the impact and ‘blast radius’ of a ransomware attack. It’s also essential to measure your recovery steps and processes from such an impact.  

​​​Three Factors of Ransomware Readiness 

A ransomware defense assessment helps evaluate an organization's ability to detect, contain and remediate a ransomware or multifaceted extortion attack within its environment before it can wreak havoc. The process begins with examining standard controls and cybersecurity risk policies a business has in place, or details where they may be lacking. Once those standard components are addressed, then the focus can be applied to specific tools and systems, such as: 

• Reviewing existing backup systems 

• Detailing the level of data immutability present 

• Discovering if malware/threat detection is included ​​to monitor critical assets and data 

• How far ​​‘back’ can you go to make sure there is a clean copy of your infrastructure? 

• Do you have a ‘zero-trust’ architecture in place? 

• Is multifactor authentication (MFA) present? 

While we now know how a ransomware readiness assessment is different, is it needed by your business or organization? We detail why they should be part of cybersecurity strategy and the potential impact of ransomware below. Let’s get started.  

Make Sure Your Business is Protected: Connect with our cybersecurity experts to get started on your tailored security solution today.  

Why a Ransomware Readiness Assessment is Essential 

There are several barriers for organizations to clear when considering implementing a ransomware readiness assessment. There is the upfront cost to complete the assessment, which can be difficult to sign off on considering the budget constraints in place for many organizations. There’s the time needed to conduct the assessment. And then there’s the resources required to follow through on the findings of the assessment. Finding a problem means little if you don’t fix it. 

While these are valid considerations, the risk in ignoring ransomware preparedness is simply too great. It’s simply not realistic to expect your organization will never have to deal with a cyberattack or ransomware threats. It’s a fallacy to think your business will never be breached, whether it’s due to your size or industry. In 2022, 83% of all business organizations surveyed experienced more than one data breach. It’s not a question of if, but when.  

Ransomware remains a top vector for criminals looking to infiltrate, extort, and lock down businesses. According to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), 25% of all data breaches now involve ransomware; meaning that the risk of losing your data is also coupled with the threats of steep ransoms to unlock that data. It remains a threat-heavy environment for all organizations as well. More than 130 different strains (or families) of ransomware have been identified since 2020 alone. 

Ransomware Impact on Businesses is Devastating 

Ransomware remains the most disruptive threat for businesses of all sizes as it attacks organizations in multiple ways. It locks organizations out of their own data and processing, potentially shutting them down for days or even weeks. The ransom demand itself is a steep cost and can cripple many smaller organizations. The loss of customer data is a severe reputational hit that can be difficult to recover from. 

You don’t have to search far to find high-profile examples of ransomware wrecking large institutions. In 2021, CNA Financial paid a $40 million ransom to hackers for the release of its systems and data. The Colonial Pipeline attack, also in 2021, resulted in a $4.4 million Bitcoin ransom being paid. The larger disruption came as the company halted oil supplies throughout the duration of the attack, sparking fuel shortages and panic-buying throughout the Eastern Seaboard. Hackers ultimately affected the supply and cost of gas, impacting people’s everyday experiences. 

These two examples offer a glimpse into how ransomware can affect larger organizations. But smaller businesses are increasingly targeted with such attacks as they often have fewer or less sophisticated defenses and may be more amenable to simply paying a ransom more quickly. With an average cost of $4.54 million, suffering a ransomware attack can be a business-ending event.  

Beyond that impact, a ransomware attack forces organizations to start second guessing which vendors are ‘safe’ and who their allies really are. It can have a long-lasting and lingering influence on how they operate.  

A ransomware readiness assessment helps you plot out the most important aspects of dealing with this kind of attack. The right approach needs to cover three broad areas — a strong prevention strategy, a containment strategy, and a recovery strategy. With an assessment, you can build a plan to limit your exposure, contain the intrusion when it happens, and have a proven process to regain access and control. 

Configuring Correctly is Key: Get a deeper understanding of what SaaS misconfiguration is, how it comes about, and exactly what organizations can do to address it. 

Take your Ransomware Readiness Assessment needs to Inversion6 

Inversion6 is a serious partner dedicated to protecting your organization relentlessly — every hour of every day — by investigating and detecting potential threats, then communicating those concerns to help you eliminate security issues. 

Our Ransomware Resiliency Assessment evaluates the capability of a company to contain and limit the impact of a ransomware attack. We’ll help you to develop solutions to limit your exposure to attacks, and to contain the threat once it arrives. It’s important to remember that once ransomware starts spreading, it can take on a life of its own and quickly spiral out of control. Ensuring access to your backups, and containment are essential.  

This is one of the many tools Inversion6 uses to help safeguard businesses against this most disruptive of threats. We offer complete Security Operations Center (SOC) services for 24/7 monitoring. SaaS Application Security helps you eliminate potential loopholes through improperly configured software and applications. We can even identify and mitigate vulnerabilities with autonomous penetration testing.  

Connect with our team today to learn how our ransomware readiness assessment capabilities can protect your business.