Nowadays almost every activity of a company goes through computer systems. In them resides a vast set of information essential for your business. Ramsomware aims to exploit the reliance on this information for the continuation of a business.
Ransomware is a malicious software designed to prevent infected users from accessing his files. In the business context such a situation can have catastrophic consequences because a company cannoe live without the information contained in its computer systems. Usually this type of infection is accompanied by some kind of "ransom request" in which a victim is required to be given access to their files. Most of the times this amount should be paid in bitcoin thus making the transfer untraceable.
The most common behavior of this type of virus is to encrypt the entire contents of the disk. That is, all files are eligible unless the decryption key is provided. This key is thus used as an exchange to prompt the user to make the required payment, with the expectation that the attacker will send him the key and he can recover all his files.
The main ways to get infected with this type of malware are the same as those of computer virus infection. Basically the 2 biggest gateway to your system are email and visiting sites of dubious origin.
Email is your company's primary gateway to the world. Thus, it is not surprising that it is one of the most widely used ways for attacks. You should always be careful about attachments or links that are in the body of the emails you receive. You should not run or click anything from unknown or unwanted senders.
Browsing sites of dubious origin may also be the reason for ransomware infection. Whether you are transferring and executing a file or exploiting a vulnerability in your system, you may see your computer infected with a virus.
One of the essential requirements to protect your company from computer attacks is to install an antivirus on your system. This way you will already have a layer of protection in case malicious software infects your system. However, antivirus software is not foolproof and may offer limited protection for new viruses. Thus the human aspect is fundamental, that is, the habits and actions of the user. Risk behaviors such as those outlined above should be avoided as much as possible to reduce the likelihood of being infected with a computer virus. It is therefore up to company managers to ensure that all employees adopt safe behaviors on their computers, since the failure of only one of them can compromise the entire organization.