Dealing with the aftermath of a ransomware attack can be a challenging and stressful process. However, with a well-prepared recovery plan and a systematic approach, organizations can effectively navigate the recovery process and minimize the impact of the attack.
With that in mind, this article will discuss key steps and strategies for ransomware recovery.
Activate the Incident Response Plan
Immediately when you become aware of the ransomware attack against your business, you should activate your incident response plan to initiate a coordinated and organized response to the ransomware attack.
Your incident response plan should outline roles, responsibilities, and procedures for handling the incident effectively. In particular, this plan of yours should outline a system to check your data backups to verify whether or not you can simply dismiss the data lost in the ransomware attack and use your backup moving forward.
Restore from Backups
If you do have a comprehensive and recent backup that can be used, then the process of restoring the affected systems and data from those backups is an important step to take. However, you should ensure that you have improved security measures in place before you work to restore your backup.
For example, you might want to make sure that you invest in high-quality Firewalls from WatchGuard, which can help to ensure that you can carefully control the access to and from your network. What’s more, you should ensure that your backups are clean and free from the malware that caused the initial attack.
Assess the Damage
Whether you are restoring a backup or not, you should make sure that you take the time to perform a thorough assessment of the impact and damage caused by the ransomware attack. This starts with you working to identify the systems, networks, and data that have been compromised or encrypted by the malware.
Work to immediately segment and isolate those systems to protect the unaffected aspects of your network. When starting these assessments, be sure to prioritize critical systems and data so that you know the severity of the attack’s impact as soon as possible.
Report the Incident
Of course, once you have your footing again, you should take steps to report the ransomware attack to the appropriate authorities and law enforcement agencies.
By providing them with relevant information, you can aid in investigations and potentially help in apprehending the attackers, which would be a cathartic bit of justice for your business after the attack.
Learn from the Experience
Use this ransomware attack as an opportunity to learn and improve your overall cybersecurity posture and better educate your workforce – both on how to respond to an active attack and how to prevent future attacks.
To help you learn from this attack, you should conduct a post-incident analysis to identify the root causes of the attack and develop strategies to mitigate similar risks in the future.
What’s more, you should take the time to share the lessons learned with not only your employees but also as many people as you can online. After all, a safer internet is going to be beneficial to your business overall.