We’ve covered many ransomware topics but have yet to touch on how quickly a ransomware attack can happen. These articles have all been written for good reason. In the most recent months, along with heavy-duty phishing campaigns being more successful, so have ransomware attacks. And the crazy part about it all is how fast an attack can happen. Microsoft has been big on security, despite the millions of flaws they constantly have that allow remote attacks to happen.
Either way, they have had a Digital Security Intelligence Report that has been able to help people learn all about the new virus trends. It disappeared for a while, and eventually, Microsoft realized people liked these; they ended up creating and rebranding this report as the Microsoft Digital Defense Report. One of their most recent reports discusses how quickly a ransomware attack can happen and completely compromise systems and even entire networks in businesses.
Table of Contents
How Fast Can an Attack Happen?
Microsoft has come out with its newest Digital Defense Report, and it is available for download and goes over in-depth just how quickly a ransomware attack can happen. Picture courtesy of Microsoft for How Quickly a Ransomware Attack Can Happen In 2020.
Some phishing campaigns and ransomware attacks can take a lot of time as the attackers can use the victim’s systems and infiltrate large corporations. This is more common with government offices, though, as these hacking groups steal pertinent information to sell on the dark web or other countries’ governments.
If you’re the average Joe or “normal” small business, these attacks are often more basic – and they happen a lot faster. It has been documented that some companies ended up getting slapped with ransomware and the attacks in just a matter of minutes – about 45 to be exact. That’s how quickly a ransomware attack can happen.
What Are We Looking At?
Let’s take a look at how quickly a ransomware attack can happen and how it works.
It’s important to know how these cyberattacks happen – as discussed in the past posts briefly, we’ve mentioned how conversation hijacking happens. But what we didn’t tell you is how it’s done and how easy it is to fall for. In many cases, the perpetrator ends up pretending to compromise a larger individual in the business, and that’s all the info they need to start the attack.
Picture courtesy of Microsoft for How Quickly a Ransomware Attack Can Happen In 2020.
Then they contact other employees by pretending to be the higher-up individual using impersonation and spoofing them. They then gain access to the other email accounts; they might even monitor the CEO’s email to get more information to make the attack less determinable. They’ll do things like set email forwarding rules and more. Then they’ll send a ransomware email to all of the infected computers unbeknownst to the victims. They continue to pretend to be the CEO or other high individual to gain a trusting relationship.
Once they’re done, they end up getting information from their victims, such as bank accounts and other accounts to get pertinent information for that person. This can be as detailed as expense accounts through the company or even the employees’ actual personal bank accounts and payroll information.
Picture courtesy of Microsoft for How Quickly a Ransomware Attack Can Happen In 2020.
The next thing the company knows, the victim network gets slapped with ransomware that quickly encrypts a computer. In the matter of literally minutes, all of the computer system’s important personal folders and then the program folders for Windows (or the operating system being used) gets compromised and encrypted. Then the mad hatter can go to work.
They end up getting the victims to wire payments using a fraudulent bank account or even a cryptocurrency wallet (the latter being more popular). This makes things harder to trace. They’ll then use this time to threaten the company that if they don’t pay up, then they’ll not only NOT get their computers and data decrypted, but they’ll end up having all of their information sold to parties and groups on the dark web.
How Can I Stay Safe?
Picture courtesy of Microsoft for How Quickly a Ransomware Attack Can Happen In 2020.
One may wonder just how they’re supposed to keep their business safe from attackers. These cyber attackers have even gone so far as to incorporate phone scams into the mix more and the years with their robocalls and autodialers, let alone their phishing attempts. If you’ve ever received a random phishing job email that’s asking for your information from random sources, you probably understand.
Picture courtesy of Microsoft for How Quickly a Ransomware Attack Can Happen In 2020.
So what can you do? The first thing would be to incorporate defense solutions, but you want to have a good team of technology professionals to do the job. There may be professional services out there, but the best method is to hire a dedicated team of managed service providers to get the job done. They can incorporate things like virtual phone systems for small businesses and even larger ones to increase phone security, provide smart technology solutions like SentinelOne to increase cybersecurity, and even set up special security in your business to protect you both on the inside, the outside, and even the online world itself.