Ransomware is fast becoming the scourge of IT departments all over the world. It has risen over the past 12-24 months from a minor nuisance to a major threat – causing business disruption and damaging the brand and reputation of countless organizations. There’s no silver bullet for stopping this new malware threat. But take the time to put in place layered protection, coupled with other preventative measures, and you stand the best chance of mitigating the risk of infection.
Layered protection should always start with the email and web gateway. That means Trend Micro Deep Discovery, InterScan Web Security and Cloud App Security for Office 365.
Protecting your enterprise users
Why the gateway? Because blocking at this point will protect the most vulnerable part of your organization – your users. Although ransomware authors are increasingly targeting diverse parts of the IT environment – including servers and networks – the majority of ransomware attacks still come via email and web channels. It could be a malicious email attachment, or potentially a URL linking to a drive-by-download – anything to entice your organization’s weakest link into making a mistake.
Of the 99 million ransomware threats Trend Micro blocked between October 2015 and April 2016, 99% were stopped at the gateway – in malicious emails or web links. Catch it at this stage and your users will never even be exposed to the risk of clicking through.
Defense starts here
Trend Micro offers a comprehensive set of capabilities designed to block ransomware threats at the mail and web gateway.
Deep Discovery Email Inspector can enhance any email gateway security solution, detecting and blocking advanced spear phishing emails which can bypass many traditional filters. Specifically, it offers:
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Cloud App Security is an important tool to enhance your cloud-based email protection solutions. Although these platforms typically have security built in, it pays to have extra protection. Trend Micro Cloud App Security has blocked over one million threats that weren’t detected by Office 365. It offers:
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InterScan Web Security has been designed to protect organizations at the web gateway, to stop users visiting malicious or compromised sites. It features:
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Remember, the email and web gateway defense solutions you put in place are alone not sufficient to prevent all ransomware threats. To stand the best chance of avoiding infection, consider complementing them with endpoint, network and server-level security as well as additional steps including automated back-ups, user education and network segregation.
At Trend Micro, we are committed to helping you protect your organization. With the growing ransomware epidemic, it is our goal to equip you with insights on current threats and information on how to best protect your organization. Say NO to ransomware!
Make sure to check our blog regularly for more information. Our next three posts will detail the next lines of defense in the fight against ransomware: the endpoint, the network and the server.
Click here to read Part 3: Lock Down the Endpoint as Part of Your Layered Defense Against Ransomware.
