Ransomware attacks have been on the rise in recent years, inflicting significant damage on businesses, organizations, and individuals around the world. A successful ransomware attack encrypts the victim’s files and demands payment in order to regain access. Understanding the main causes behind why these attacks succeed can help strengthen defenses and prevent falling victim in the future.
1. Phishing
One of the most common causes of successful ransomware attacks is phishing. Phishing refers to cybercriminals sending fraudulent emails made to look like they are from a legitimate source. The goal is to trick the recipient into clicking on a malicious link or opening an infected attachment which then installs the ransomware on their system.
These emails are carefully crafted to appear trustworthy and urgent, often impersonating companies the target is familiar with. They may claim there is a problem with the recipient’s account that needs immediate action or contain an interesting subject line that baits the reader into investigating further.
Once the infected link or attachment is opened, the ransomware is able to quickly take hold and encrypt everything before the victim realizes what is happening. Phishing’s ability to exploit human psychology through social engineering is what makes it such a common and dangerous attack vector for ransomware.
How phishing leads to ransomware
A typical phishing ransomware attack unfolds in the following manner:
- The target receives an email pretending to be from a legitimate company or organization.
- The email will urge the target to click a link or open an attachment to deal with an urgent issue that requires action.
- If the person clicks the link or opens the attachment, malware infects their system.
- The ransomware software secretly encrypts the victim’s files in the background.
- Once finished, a ransom note appears demanding payment to get the files back.
As you can see, a single click on a phishing email can quickly lead to a ransomware catastrophe. Cybercriminals are experts at impersonating brands people know and trust in order to catch them off guard and compromise their systems.
Defending against phishing
Some tips to protect against phishing leading to ransomware include:
- Educating all staff on how to identify suspicious emails.
- Enabling strong spam filters to catch phishing emails.
- Blocking unnecessary file types that could hide malware.
- Keeping software patched and updated to close security holes.
- Backing up data regularly offline to recover from any attack.
2. Exploiting Vulnerabilities
Another leading cause of successful ransomware attacks is attackers actively exploiting known vulnerabilities in organizations’ IT environments. Even minor security flaws that go overlooked can give hackers the opening they need to infiltrate a network and deploy ransomware widely across connected systems.
Cybercriminals frequently scan the Internet for devices and servers containing vulnerabilities they can abuse to gain access. If any weaknesses are found, they will swiftly be leveraged before patches can be applied. Once in the system, the attackers covertly move laterally across the network and deliver the ransomware payload.
By the time the victim realizes something is wrong, the ransomware has already taken hold and brought business operations grinding to a halt. With many businesses slow or struggling to stay on top of patching, this attack vector continues to be highly effective for ransomware actors.
Common exploitation vulnerabilities
Some of the most common vulnerabilities exploited to deploy ransomware include:
- Unpatched operating systems and software: Not keeping OSes and programs up-to-date with the latest security patches can leave dangerous holes open to be abused.
- Weak passwords: If employees use simple, guessable passwords, attackers can easily brute force their way into accounts and systems.
- Legacy systems: Old hardware and software that is no longer supported often contains flaws that are left unaddressed.
- Default configurations: Devices and services running under default settings tend to have known vulnerabilities attackers target.
- Open RDP: Internet-facing Remote Desktop Protocol endpoints allow attackers easy access into corporate networks.
Steps to reduce exposure
Organizations can take the following steps to remove common weaknesses and guard against vulnerability exploitation:
- Regularly patch and update all systems.
- Disable RDP if not required or limit access to VPN.
- Implement strong password policies organization-wide.
- Review and harden configurations for internet-facing assets.
- Upgrade outdated hardware and migrate legacy software.
- Perform frequent security audits to identify and address vulnerabilities.
3. Malicious Insiders
While external attacks are a major concern, insider threats should not be discounted when it comes to ransomware. Disgruntled or malicious employees intentionally infecting their organization’s systems with ransomware is an often overlooked but very real risk.
These insiders have intimate knowledge of the company network, IT systems, and potential weaknesses that they can exploit to successfully deploy ransomware from within. Their access and familiarity with internal operations makes it far easier to cause extensive damage before being detected.
Depending on their role, malicious insiders may even have the permissions needed to disable security tools, allowing them to sneak ransomware past defenses and infiltrate deeply into the organization. By the time strange activity is noticed, the insider could have already initiated the attack making recovery difficult.
Warning signs of insider threat
Some indicators that an employee poses a ransomware insider threat include:
- Disgruntlement over compensation, workload, or interpersonal conflicts.
- Significant change in behavior or attitude toward colleagues.
- Comments indicating dissatisfaction or malicious intent.
- Attempts to gain unauthorized access to privileged systems.
- Unusually high activity outside normal working hours.
- Connecting unauthorized external devices to the corporate network.
Securing against insider attacks
Steps organizations can take to guard against malicious insider ransomware attacks include:
- Conduct thorough background checks on all new hires.
- Implement the principle of least privilege access.
- Log and monitor all internal systems activity.
- Require elevated credentials for critical system changes.
- Watch for signs of disgruntlement in valued employees.
- Develop incident response plans for insider threat scenarios.
Conclusion
Ransomware continues to be one of the most serious cybersecurity threats to businesses and organizations. By understanding the main pathways these attacks succeed through, steps can be taken to close security gaps and reduce the risk of a successful infection. Limiting the attack surface and hardening infrastructure and policies against common exploits provides the best multi-layer defense.
However, as techniques constantly evolve, it’s impossible to prevent every attack. Maintaining reliable backups offline that can be used to restore encrypted data without paying the ransom acts as the last line of defense against having business operations crippled.
With proactive preparation and deterrence combined with plans to minimize disruption if infected, organizations can tackle the ransomware epidemic with greater resilience.