IBM Security Announces Breaches Drop, While Ransomware Skyrockets
On Monday, IBM Security announced results from its 2018 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index which found the number of records breached dropped nearly 25%, while ransomware continues to skyrocket. Ransomware, malicious software that encrypts files or entire networks, demands a ransom payment to decrypt the files. Unfortunately, half of the time ransom demands are paid, the hackers still do not decrypt the data, leaving the businesses facing a financial loss and a lost data.
A few years ago, when cyber criminals began a significant uptake in the use of ransomware, ransom demands were being met. As the threat continued, victims slowly began not paying. This is obviously not what the hackers wanted. Now, they’re taking things one step further. Not only are hackers encrypting files, but they’re beginning to steal personal identifiable information and confidential data. They then threaten the victims to leak the data or sell it on the dark web if they do not pay.
In order to stay protected against ransomware, the US-CERT and New Zealand CERT have encouraged the use of whitelisting. By using a security solution that includes a whitelist technology, unknown and often malicious threats, will not be able to execute. NZ-CERT goes one step further, encouraging the use of dynamic whitelisting, which increases the efficiency of the whitelist technology.
PC Matic employs a patent pending, globally automated whitelist technology. This means that users are not responsible for establishing their own whitelist. Instead the maintenance and unknown file testing is done completely by the PC Matic team.
Win the war against ransomware with PC Matic.
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