Ransomware: Early Signs, Protection, and Staying Ahead

Ransomware is one of the most dangerous attacks in cybersecurity. Although many people see ransomware as a sudden attack, there are warning signs that you may ignore.

It would be best to protect networks from ransomware, especially large enterprises with multiple servers, workstations, and users. Cybercriminals can mount a ransomware attack through email attachments, which will begin to encrypt the user's files upon opening.

Sometimes it's easier for a hacker to get in through a third-party app than to get past your security. But it's easy for them to get into your systems once they have access to third-party apps that run on or connect to your systems.

In this article, you will learn about the signs of ransomware and how you can identify them.

Signs of Ransomware Attacks and How to Identify Them

1. Phishing Emails

   Most ransomware attacks come through an email attachment. Spam emails are dangerous, and users must be wary of clicking any attachment that comes with them. You can use email filtering software to alert you and filter suspicious emails away from you. Also, before clicking an email attachment, check for suspicious HTML elements, grammatical errors, and other malicious attachments.

   
   

2. Test Attacks

   A small-scale attack on a few workstations will allow hackers to test their findings for vulnerabilities before launching a large-scale attack to see how quickly you react (if at all).

   
   

   These small-scale attacks may appear to be isolated incidents with no connection. Still, they are generally part of a larger campaign carried out over several weeks or months. If they can get through your defenses with ease, it provides them a sense of how to adjust their full-blown attack.

   
   

3. Repeated Suspicious Login Activities

   Ransomware can come in the form of repeated suspicious login activities. When you notice suspicious login attempts on your account, especially from multiple addresses, you are at the risk of a ransomware attack.

   
   

4. Sign of Hacker tools

   When you notice hacker tools like Mimikatz and Microsoft Process Explorer, these are tools that hackers use to steal your credentials. Theoretically, endpoint security solutions and anti-virus software may be used to identify known variations of Mimikatz, although this is not always the case. In addition, because an attacker must have root privileges to run Mimikatz, the attacker has already bypassed your perimeter protection. In this situation, the most effective protection method against MimiKatz-based ransomware attacks would be to ensure that administrative rights are only assigned to those who require them.

   
   

5. Unauthorized Network Scanners

   Hackers can use end-users to access files and programs hosted on a company's server using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). It is also a common attack vector for ransomware, as more people are working from home and using RDP to connect to their company's network.

   
   

   An attacker's first step is to use open-source port-scanning programs such as AngryIP or Advanced Port Scanner to search the Internet for accessible RDP ports. An attacker will try to get into the network with stolen credentials or brute-force attempts.

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