Ransomware remains one of the most damaging threats to organizations of every size in the region. The technical details change, but the pattern of a bad incident is familiar: unclear roles, missing contacts, and backups that turn out to be encrypted too.
Before an incident
- Keep at least one backup copy offline or immutable, and test restoring it.
- Enable multi-factor authentication for remote access, email and administrator accounts.
- Write down who decides what: shutting systems down, contacting authorities, communicating with customers.
- Keep a printed contact list. Your email and phone directory may be unavailable.
In the first hour
- Isolate affected machines from the network, but do not switch them off. Memory may hold evidence.
- Disable compromised accounts and reset privileged credentials from a clean device.
- Preserve logs and ransom notes. Take photographs if needed.
- Call your incident response partner before contacting the attackers.
The best time to plan your response is on a quiet Tuesday, not at 2 a.m. on a Saturday.
A two-hour tabletop exercise with your management team is one of the cheapest and most effective security investments you can make. We run them regularly for clients, and the findings are almost always surprising.