Welcome to part two of our blog series about the evolving ransomware threats facing government agencies. If you missed it, check out part one: The Ransomware Riddle: The Growing Threat Government Agencies are Trying to Solve, where we address why agencies are a bullseye for these growing attacks and protection is so challenging.
The good news is that there is a solution to this cyber epidemic. Rather than focus on the detection of ransomware and other forms of malware, which creates a reactive, fire-drill mentality, it’s time to shift the focus to prevention. What’s needed is a zero trust stance, which works on the assumption that everything on your system is already compromised — or could be compromised — and blocks unacceptable actions.
The solution is the LinkGuard platform, which prevents breaches from occurring by disrupting the earliest and subsequent stages of ransomware attacks that are undetectable by many traditional anti-virus solutions.
How is a Zero Trust Approach Different from Anti-Virus?
Traditional anti-virus (AV) software relies upon signatures and scanning to identify malware and ransomware. Signature-based approaches cannot defend against malware until samples of the virus are obtained, signatures generated, and updates distributed to users, making them ineffective against emerging zero-day malware attacks. The LinkGuard approach instead prevents ransomware from detonating and delivers valuable Indicators of Attack (IOA) well in advance of conventional detection products. As a result, attacks are halted at the first stage, eliminating concern about compromised user workspace or hijacked system resources.
Benefits of a Zero Trust Stance
With the LinkGuard platform, your agency benefits in four key ways:
- Set and forget endpoint protection: By preventing endpoint compromises without signatures of any kind, a zero trust approach require no updates or help from the cloud to protect endpoints from threats. Offline endpoints, such as industrial control systems, are also protected as they are isolated from the internet and normal IT operations.
- Reduced cyber costs: Keeping cyber threats at bay with traditional cyber solutions can be costly, particularly if a breach occurs. These costs are tied up in tools, services, personnel, and readiness exercises for cyber hygiene, security incident and event management (SIEM), breach detection systems, incident response, remediation, threat intelligence, operations optimization, and more. By adopting a zero trust stance, you can nip these costs at the endpoint — and rest assured that your network will not be compromised.
- Alleviate the cyber skills gap: If you don’t have cyber expertise in house, don’t worry. The LinkGuard platform does not require specialized IT skills to administer, edit, or manage. Because unacceptable actions are automatically blocked, administrators do not need to analyze and react to alerts as is required with other endpoint detection and response products.
- Defeat more than just ransomware: While ransomware threats certainly have your attention, you want to be safe from any type of malicious behaviors, from advanced malware, to file-less attacks. Say goodbye to the non-stop dilemma of identifying good versus bad files and normal versus abnormal behaviors — an infinite hamster wheel that you can’t out run — to blocking any unacceptable actions and advanced threats to keep your business running safely.
Ready to shift to future-proof breach prevention? Download our new white paper, “Guard Government Services from Ransomware Attacks,” to learn more.