As organizations deploy more and more cloud native workloads, the ability to protect them in a secure and cost-effective manner is becoming increasingly important. Data access is also more widely spread, making it even more critical to meet this protection need with a secure, logically air-gapped copy of that data.

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AvosLocker is a relatively new ransomware written in C++ that was first seen in June 2021. Their business model is ‘Ransomware-as-a-Service’ (RaaS), and even though they have been operating for less than a year now, they’ve been successful overall when it comes to victims. The group openly and publicly tries to recruit new members to its team and operates a TOR leak site, showcasing the latest victims, as all other ransomware groups do.

In the past year, virtually every day has brought news of another debilitating ransomware attack. And, in many of those attacks, there were key lessons that can be applied to companies like yours. This article will recap five real-life impacts of recent ransomware attacks. It will also provide best practices you can follow to prevent your organization from becoming a potential victim.

Adversaries are moving beyond malware and becoming more sophisticated in their attacks by using legitimate credentials and built-in tools to evade detection by traditional antivirus products. According to the CrowdStrike 2022 Global Threat Report, 62% of detections indexed by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud in Q4 2021 were malware-free.

Viruses, worms, ransomware — even the least tech-savvy among us know what these are, and want to avoid them if at all possible. What do they all have in common (besides the fact that they can lock up your devices and attempt to steal your data)? They all fall under the malware umbrella.

There’s no denying it: ransomware is now big business. Entire supply chains exist where organized criminals specialize in one or more parts of the crime. The growing popularity of Ransomware-as-a-Service significantly lowers the technical bar of entry for cybercriminals. Some specializations include gaining access to credentials, penetrating hosts, identifying data, delivering encryption payloads, and accepting and distributing the ransom money.

Ransomware continued to be the most significant cybersecurity threat facing critical infrastructure, healthcare, defense, and other industries, according to a report issued jointly on February 9 by law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.

A surge in “sophisticated, high impact” ransomware attacks has prompted the United States’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and the Australian Cyber Security Center to issue a joint advisory about the techniques being used by cybercriminals to attack businesses and organisations.