Ransomware in the Remote Work Era

Phishing and ransomware attacks continue to rise, according to Proofpoint’s State of the Phish report for 2020. Organizations in the U.S. are at risk, the increase in remote work due to the pandemic has fueled a spike in attacks, and phishing attempts are up by 14 percent compared to the previous year.

Email continues to be the number 1 delivery vehicle, but other social engineering schemes that rely on social media, voicemail (“vishing"), SMS phishing (“smishing”), and malicious USB drops are also of concern for organizations. Ransom demands are also on the rise, but according to the report, paying the ransom is not guaranteed to work as many companies that paid the ransom failed to receive a decryption key.

Join this month's episode of The (Security) Balancing Act as Diana Kelley and guests discuss why ransomware is surging again, which sectors are most at risk, the threat to enterprises and how it is being used for more than just ransom (ex: distractionware, destructionware, etc).

• The rise in ransomware under the cloak of the pandemic
• Why email continues to be the channel of choice
• The difference between fully automated and human-operated campaigns
• How to decide whether or not to pay or not to pay the ransom
• Why your backups may not be immune to ransomware
• Addressing the threat with best practices

Speakers

• Jessica Gulick, Founder & CEO of Katzcy Consulting
• Courtney Radke, CISO for National Retail, Fortinet
• Patrick Lee, Senior Incident Response Consultant, Rapid7

This episode is part of The (Security) Balancing Act original series with Diana Kelley. We welcome viewer participation and questions during this interactive panel session.