New solution tackles ransomware at source

Ransomware is one of the biggest cyber threats businesses and individuals face and tackling it requires a customized approach.

Israel-based illusive networks is launching a new Advanced Ransomware Guard product that uses deception techniques to spot threats across the entire network, endpoints and servers and neutralize ransomware activity at the source hosts.

"Ransomware requires a dedicated solution," says illusive networks CEO Shlomo Touboul. "Unlike other malware types, ransomware immediately takes sensitive information hostage and ransom demand timelines are tight, so proactive and accurate detection and response is imperative. The market's initial responses have yielded solutions based on behavioral analytics and machine learning- which generate an extremely high rate of false positives -- or honeypots -- which have a high level of false negatives -- both are low fidelity detection and fall short when it comes to ransomware".

As soon as ransomware attempts to gain a foothold in a network or move laterally toward strategic assets, illusive's high fidelity detection and Advanced Ransomware Guard automatically blocks the ransomware operation on the source hosts, alerts defenders and diverts it to encrypt phony targets.

The solution blocks ransomware before it manages to encrypt files and with zero disruption to business operations. It protects against zero-hour ransomware, without relying on signatures and ensures no false positives. It also guards against the next generation of Advanced Ransomware Threats (ARTs).

"Current ransomware is relatively simple and opportunistic," says Touboul. "We anticipate a future where a new generation of Advanced Ransomware Threats, which we refer to as ARTs, are carried out by the most advanced attackers. Such ARTs will start with lateral movement and APT techniques to reach and encrypt the most critical and precious digital assets allowing the attacker to claim the highest ransom fees. Our new family of deceptions takes into account the evolution we expect to see in ARTs and to keep our customers protected".

You can find out more about the release and the deception approach to tackling ransomware on the illusive networks site.

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