3 Tips to Make Sure You Never Fall Victim to Ransomware

3 Tips to Make Sure You Never Fall Victim to Ransomware

prevent being a victim of ransomware

In the first 6 months of 2018, the worst cybersecurity breaches consisted of Russian grid hacking, over 140 US universities breaches, rampant data exposures, Under Armour’s app breach, and the VPNFilter malware. Unfortunately, attacks like these still occur every day and PalmTech wants to ensure that you do not fall victim to them.

In addition to our Weekly Cyber Security Tip email campaign, we not only try to keep our clients informed of potential risks, but we try to prevent them as well. During our client onboarding process, one of our 12 engineers will arrive onsite to conduct a 260-question evaluation of your network setup, security measures, and more. From there, our team will devise a customized action plan for your company and begin implementing that plan right away!

To ensure that your company and your client’s credentials are safe, reach out to your current IT company and make sure that your company is following these three tips.

1. Always Backup Your Files

As a managed service provider, we not only encourage our clients to backup their data, but we demand it. Whether it’s done manually or automatically replicated to the cloud, you need to backup everything regularly and consistently.

With a real-time or file-synch backup strategy, you will be able to roll back everything in your network to before an infection happened. Without this strategy, once ransomware hits, it can encrypt your files and therefore disrupt your day to day business operations causing a company shutdown.

Bonus Tip: If you really want to secure your backups, maintain several different copies in various locations on different media that malware cannot spread to from your primary network. That way, if there is a breach, you will be able to pinpoint the malware, delete it, and restore your network to a pre-virus state. Using this method, you will be able to drastically minimize the damage and totally circumvent paying out a hefty ransom.

2. Invest in Education

PalmTech’s CEO, Chuck Poole, is a massive supporter of personal and professional development. Each of his employees attends workshops, watches webinars, and takes on new certifications to better themselves and to better develop their skills used to help their clients. Not only does Chuck encourage professional development of his team, but his clients too.

In many instances, antivirus programs are not able to prevent all ransomware attacks. Instead, they can only prevent the one’s that they have been made aware of, leaving you vulnerable to the one’s that they don’t recognize. Therefore, the real danger lies in the actions that your employees take at their workstations every day.

Hackers have become skilled at manipulating ransomware to take on extremely tricky forms, which is why PalmTech offers cyber security training to our clients and their employees. In addition to the training, we also send out various types of phishing campaigns each month. This service trains your team to easily recognize social engineering strategies, shady clickbait links, and the dangers of unvetted attachment to better prevent ransomware from finding a foothold in your network.

3. Monitor Your Network 24/7

One of the perks of having a managed service provider is access to 24/7 monitoring. Having a team like PalmTech on your side to actively whitelist applications, update the latest patches, and restrict administrative privileges to users can dramatically reduce the risk and impact of ransomware to your company.

While you can try and monitor your network yourself, it can be difficult to manage with multiple employees and devices in place. Outsourcing the work can ensure that preventative measures are being taken around the clock while you continue doing the work you love!



For those of you that have already begun working on these strategies, kudos to you. And if you don’t have an IT company or you’d like a second opinion, feel free to take advantage of our FREE Cyber Security Assessment. As an act of good faith, we want to make sure that your business is secure, even if you don’t partner with PalmTech!