Ransomware protection: AI and strategies to combat rising threats

Since knowledge is the lifeblood of contemporary enterprise, ransomware safety have to be a high precedence for enterprises, as cybercriminals are continuously focusing on it.

In line with the Zscaler Inc. “ThreatLabz 2024 Ransomware Report,” ransomware continues to be extremely in style amongst cyber menace actors primarily based on its profitable nature. As an illustration, the Darkish Angels Ransomware Group was paid $75 million after a knowledge breach, in response to Brett Stone-Gross (pictured), senior director of menace intelligence at Zscaler Inc.

“Darkish Angels truly operates in the other way,” Stone-Gross stated. “They really don’t need to trigger your corporation a disruption. They need to steal an unlimited quantity of information that they’ll then maintain up as ransom. We described within the report a few of the corporations they stole knowledge from was between 10 and 100 terabytes of information. This particular firm that paid a $75 million ransom is a Fortune 50 firm. To them, clearly, they did some math and determined it was price paying a ransom than danger that quantity of information being leaked on-line.”

Stone-Gross spoke with theCUBE Analysis’s Principal Analyst Shelly Kramer throughout a SecurityANGLE phase on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They mentioned why ransomware safety shouldn’t be handled as a bolt-on. 

How AI matches into the ransomware safety image

Safeguarding enterprise data ought to be high of thoughts, as this performs a pivotal function in ransomware safety. In consequence, combating cyberattacks with enhanced monitoring and cutting-edge applied sciences, reminiscent of synthetic intelligence, ought to be the icing on the cake, in response to Stone-Gross. 

“By way of what corporations can do, clearly, there’s plenty of applied sciences, together with one thing that Zscaler provides,” he stated. “There’s plenty of alternatives the place corporations can do higher, can deploy higher options, higher monitoring. There’s some huge cash being poured into AI to unravel a few of these options. AI might possibly help with lowering all of the noise and attempt to provide you with solely issues that require consideration.”

In line with the report, the vitality, non secular and meals & restaurant sectors witnessed a 527.27%, 250% and 333% improve, respectively, in ransomware extortion assaults. It is a worrying development that highlights the necessity for ransomware safety, Stone-Gross identified. 

“I feel most likely these organizations could not have the safety options in place,” he stated. “A number of ransomware assaults are opportunistic. When you have a system uncovered to the web, possibly they don’t have a powerful password, it’s simply guessed. Or possibly they don’t patch susceptible software program fast sufficient. Perhaps some non secular organizations don’t prepare their staff for correct cybersecurity hygiene.”

As corporations proceed gathering increasingly knowledge, they’re changing into extra more likely to be focused by dangerous actors. In consequence, ransomware safety is extra necessary than ever since attackers can leak the information or demand a ransom with out essentially making headlines, as evidenced by Darkish Angels, in response to Stone-Gross.

“What we’re seeing with Darkish Angels is that they haven’t actually been within the headlines virtually in any respect,” he famous. “They do this on goal as a result of they don’t need to be within the information. They get quite a bit much less scrutiny from researchers, quite a bit much less scrutiny extra importantly from legislation enforcement. They’re truly extra profitable than almost another group, if not probably the most profitable group, and for that motive, we ranked them primary in our ransomware report this yr.”

Right here’s theCUBE’s full video interview with Brett Stone-Gross:

Picture: SiliconANGLE/DALL-E