To Pay or Not To Pay, That Is the Question
By Chris Bates, VP of Security Strategy, SentinelOne
Every city and government organization should assume they are a ransomware target. Attacks like the
ones in Atlanta, Baltimore and Rivera Beach are about more than just criminal payouts - they're
paralyzing attacks that can bring a city to its knees, as we're seeing. A lack of cybersecurity resources,
maintenance and updates across broad enterprises combined with the human tendency to click through
questionable emails makes municipalities an easy target.
Preparing for an attack starts with assuming an employee will introduce malware into the network and
taking steps to prevent its spread when that happens. It's incredibly hard to prevent employees from
making mistakes, which is why cities need security technologies that prevent ransomware from spreading
once the inevitable happens.
From a response standpoint, immediately isolating systems and limiting employees’ access to shared
systems may help minimize the spread of the ransomware. Legacy AV systems have continually shown
that they can't keep up with attacker sophistication and repeatedly miss detecting and proactively blocking
malware. 2019 Security Megatrends research by EMA tells us that 90% of respondents that experienced
an attack causing significant to severe impact believed an advanced endpoint solution would have