The Realist’s Guide to Practical Endpoint Protection

A hands-on guide to fighting emerging cyber security threats like ransomware.

Endpoint protection is more important than ever

There’s no getting around it:
cyber security gets tougher every day

As your company adds new users, devices, apps, and back-end infrastructure, it becomes harder and harder to see all your endpoints and understand your attack surface. There’s a real risk that your attackers will know your infrastructure better than you do.

Many organizations think they’re protected because they comply with cyber security regulations. The truth is, compliance is not enough—the threat landscape changes too fast. For instance, around 10,000 new malware variants are detected for Windows every day.1 Furthermore, new attack methods are constantly being commoditized, allowing completely unskilled hackers to breach compliance-certified businesses.

New threats like ransomware keep emerging

We’ve all seen the stories of ransomware, with attackers often demanding “affordable” ransoms to decrypt infected files. Most businesses pay up quickly, making ransomware an attractive prospect for unskilled hackers looking for a quick return. Exfiltrating and selling valuable data takes time and skill—locking down key systems and demanding a few bitcoins is alarmingly simple.

But the ransom is only one of the costs of infection—the true cost lies in the downtime of critical systems.

That’s why getting the attack prevention basics right is more important than it’s ever been.

The Cost of Ransomware

Ransomware demands are mostly just a few hundred dollars, but some small businesses have paid up to $80,000 dollars to regain access to data and systems.

One hospital in Los Angeles resorted to keeping paper admin records (and sharing them by fax) for several days before deciding to hand over $17,000 to restore access to its IT systems.

Whatever the size of your business, paying the ransom will hurt, but losing days of productivity will hurt even more.

Read the full handbook here