A new study found educational institutions are ransomware’s target…
Previously this year, the healthcare industry was named ransomware’s primary target; however, times have reportedly changed. In a recent study conducted by BitSight, the education sector was found to be more likely than other industries to be targeted by this form of malware. This was followed by the government, healthcare, energy/utilities, retail and finance industries.
The study shows one out of ten educational institutions, who took part in the research, have been impacted with ransomware. In 2016, ransomware rates have tripled compared to years past. This epidemic won’t be slowing down any time soon, so it is time to reevaluate your company’s security solution.
If you haven’t been hit with ransomware yet, great! However, if you are using an antivirus security solution that relies on blacklisting technology to keep your data safe, you won’t be secure for long. The problem with the traditional blacklist approach is, it’s impossible to keep it updated with all of the most recent threats because malware variants are changing every single minute. It’s simply not feasible to keep up with that.
However, application whitelisting technology, only allows safe programs to execute on your endpoint. This means, no matter how many new ransomware variants are created today, tomorrow or next week, they won’t be allowed to run on a PC that is using whitelisting technology. Why? Because they’ve never been tested as “safe” to make it on the whitelist.
It’s time to be proactive with your PC protection.
