Although ransomware attacks continue to make big news around the world, one of the most effective protective components is usually completely overlooked: Application Control with a Whitelist of approved applications.

Not only limited to ransomware, Application Control is a useful extension to any antivirus tool in any event as it can stop known and also unknown viruses.

Other recommendations to protect against ransomware and other potential breaches include the following:

  • Patch management – clearly this is very important. However, in actual fact it mostly helps against the spreading of ransomware, and rarely actually defends against the ransomware itself.
  • Backup – this is also a good thing. Nevertheless, backups do not help defend against ransomware, but only serve to limit its damage. This concept is a bit like home insurance – in the event of a break-in your valuables and the TV are stolen, but at least you get something back. However, you don’t get everything back, and it’s similar with ramsomware attacks your last editions of files may no longer available.
  • No longer saving files locally. This can help but not always. It can, however, make daily work far more difficult if you don’t have the right collaboration solutions in place.
  • Awareness is always required, especially to your users. Yet it seems that no matter how often someone is informed, mistakes are always made. In addition, attacks are also becoming more and more sophisticated. Therefore you can either prevent users from opening files and therefore risk reducing productivity, or the threat of ransomware remains high.
  • An antivirus solution is generally a must, but only helps, as mentioned, against known viruses. All new malicious software versions potentially have a free hand for several hours, and even several days on end – and this time in the digital world can equate to years in the real world, meaning huge damage could be done.With this in mind, and the reality that new viruses are continuously being developed to be undetectable by anti-virus technologies, the shortcoming becomes more obvious.

What’s the solution?

And this is exactly where we come to the solution. Would you want to regulate access to your company or your bank by giving a doorman 350,000,000 photos of all known criminals worldwide? And also describe to him the patterns that make someone who is not in this list suspicious, for example because he is wearing a mask or has an empty purse with him?

Alternatively, you could give the porter the list of 20-30 people who are allowed to enter the building, and all others have no access and can be added to the list only after a review. This option is not only easier, but also significantly safer. And this is how application control works.

Further reading?

You can read EgoSecure’s Application Control whitepaper here.

More information

Click here for more information on EgoSecure’s solutions…

Want to find discuss your requirements?

As EgoSecure Specialist Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a convenient time to call you back.

Recommended Posts