Lessons From Clop: Combating Ransomware and Cyber Extortion Events>
– Devaney Devoe
The Clop ransomware attacks of 2020 highlighted the vulnerability of complex organizational networks that rely heavily on digital technology. In these attacks, cyber criminals infiltrated a companyâs systems and held their data for ransom â an attack known as a cyber extortion attack. The attackers demanded payment from the companies in exchange for the release of their data. The security lapses that enabled these attacks to occur can be attributed to a lack of basic cyber security measures. Poorly managed access to privileged accounts and insufficiently secured access control along with insufficient segmentation between systems were a few of the primary vulnerabilities that allowed the attackers to gain access in the first place. It also highlighted some of the common mistakes organizations make when it comes to data security, such as failing to keep current backups of their data and not having an incident response plan in place. It is critical for companies to run regular cyber security assessments to identify and remediate any vulnerabilities in their IT infrastructure. Protecting privileged accounts and systems should be a priority, as gaining access to a single privileged account can be enough for attackers to gain a beachhead into a companyâs systems. Implementing a comprehensive multi-factor authentication solution should also be considered, and access control policies should be regularly monitored and updated.
Link: https://flashpoint.io/blog/lessons-from-clop-ransomware-cyber-extortion-attacks/