WHITE PAPER

Best Practices for Dealing With

Phishing and Ransomware
ON An Osterman Research White Paper
Published September 2016

Sponsored by

sponsored by
sponsored by
SPON

sponsored by
Osterman Research, Inc.
P.O. Box 1058 • Black Diamond, Washington • 98010-1058 • USA
Tel: +1 206 683 5683 • Fax: +1 253 458 0934 • [email protected]
www.ostermanresearch.com • @mosterman
 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Phishing and ransomware are serious problems that can steal or disable access to
corporate or personal finances, sensitive employee data, patient data, intellectual
property, employee files and other valuable content. Both ransomware and phishing
attacks and their variants – spearphishing/whaling and CEO Fraud/Business Email
Compromise (BEC) – are increasingly common and are having devastating impacts on
businesses of all sizes. The financial impact of cybercrime in general – and phishing
and ransomware in particular – is hard to assess for a variety of reasons, but the FBI
estimates that ransomware alone cost organizations $209 million in just the first
three months of 2016i.

Phishing, which can be considered the delivery mechanism of choice for various types
of malware and cybercrime attempts; and ransomware, which is a specialized form of
malware that is designed for the sole purpose of extorting money from victims, are
critical problems that every organization must address and through a variety of
means: user education, security solutions, vulnerability analysis, threat intelligence,
good backup processes, and even common sense. The good news is that there is
much that organizations can do to protect themselves, their data, their employees
and their customers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Both phishing and cryptoii ransomware are increasing at the rate of several
hundred percent per quarter, a trend that Osterman Research believes will
continue for at least the next 18 to 24 months. Both phishing
and crypto
• The vast majority of organizations have been victimized by phishing, ransomware
and a variety of security-related attacks during the past 12 months. In fact, ransomware are
phishing and ransomware are among the four leading concerns expressed by increasing at the
security-focused decision makers as discovered by Osterman Research in the
survey conducted for this white paper.
rate of several
hundred percent
• Security spending will increase significantly in 2017 as organizations realize they
need to protect against phishing, ransomware and the growing variety of other
per quarter, a
threats they face. trend that
• Most organizations are not seeing improvements in the security solutions they
Osterman
have deployed and in the security practices they follow. While many of these Research believes
solutions are effective, most are not improving over time, in many cases because
internal staff may not have the expertise to improve the performance of these
will continue for
solutions over time. On balance, only two in five of these solutions and practices at least the next
are considered “excellent”.
18 to 24 months.
• Security awareness training is a key area for improvement in protecting
organizations against phishing and ransomware, since our research found that
organizations with well-trained employees are less likely to be infected.

• There are a variety of best practices that organizations should follow in order to
minimize their potential for becoming victims of phishing and ransomware.
Among these best practices are implementing security awareness training,
deploying systems that can detect and eliminate phishing and ransomware
attempts, searching for and remediating security vulnerabilities in corporate
systems, maintaining good backups, and using good threat intelligence.

ABOUT THIS WHITE PAPER

This white paper was sponsored by Barracuda – information on the company is
provided at the end of this paper.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 1

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

KEY SECURITY CONCERNS

JUST HOW BAD IS THE PROBLEM?
Phishing, ransomware and other threats are getting significantly worse over time. For
example:

• The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) observed a 250% increase in the

number of phishing Web sites between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the first
quarter of 2016iii.

• McAfee Labs discovered nearly 1.2 million ransomware attacks during the first
quarter of 2016, a 24 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2015iv.

• A Kaspersky study during 2014 and 2015 found that total ransomware attacks
during the period of the analysis increased by 17.7 percent, but that cryptoware
variants had increased by 448 percent during that periodv.

• A US government interagency document published by the US Department of

Justice in 2016 reported that in excess of 4,000 ransomware attacks have
occurred each day since the first of the year, a 300 percent increase compared
to 2015vi.

• Attackers receive an estimated 1,425 percent return on investment for exploit kit
and ransomware schemes ($84,100 net revenue for each $5,900 investment), Phishing,
according to the 2015 Trustwave Global Security Report.
particularly
Phishing, particularly highly targeted forms of phishing like spearphishing and CEO highly targeted
Fraud/BEC, as well as ransomware, are the logical evolution of cybercrime. Because
there have been so many data breaches over the past few years that have resulted in
forms of
the theft of hundreds of millions of records, there is a glut of this information on the phishing like
market. The result, as there would be in any other business driven by the economics
of supply and demand, is that prices for stolen records are dropping precipitously: a
spearphishing
leading security firm estimates that the price of a stolen payment-card record has and CEO
decreased from $25 in 2011 to just $6 in 2016.
Fraud/BEC, as
Consequently, cybercriminals are turning increasingly to more direct means of theft. well as
For example, ransomware will extort money directly from victims without requiring
stolen data to be sold on the open market where it is subject to economic forces that
ransomware, are
can reduce its value. CEO Fraud/BEC can net hundreds of thousands or millions of the logical
dollars in a short period of time by getting victims to wire funds directly. evolution of
SECURITY INCIDENTS DURING THE PAST 12 MONTHS cybercrime.
The research conducted for this white paper found that a wide range of security
incidents have occurred during the past 12 months among the organizations that
were surveyed. The most common incidents involved phishing attacks that were
successful in infiltrating the corporate network, successful ransomware attacks, and
malware infiltration through some unknown source, as shown in Figure 1. However, a
wide range of other security incidents have occurred – in fact, only 27 percent of the
organizations surveyed reported that they did not experience any of the security
problems shown in the figure below.

Moreover, our research found that security incidents are generally not one-off events,
but occur with some frequency:

• Fifty-one percent of the organizations surveyed have experienced between one

and five ransomware infections, hacker infiltrations, malware infections, etc.
because an employee clicked on a phishing link or attachment. Another 13
percent have experienced six to 10 such attacks, and 11 percent have
experienced more than 10 attacks.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 2

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

• While CEO Fraud/BEC attacks are less common than phishing or ransomware, 27
percent of organizations have encountered such an attack during the past 12
months: 24 percent of organizations have experienced up to five such attacks
during the past year, while two percent have experienced between six and 10
attacks, and an equal number have experienced more than 10.

Figure 1
Security Incidents That Have Occurred During the Past 12 Months

% of
Organizations
Problem Affected
An email phishing attack was successful in infiltrating our
34%
network
One or more of our endpoints had files encrypted because of
30%
a successful ransomware attack
Malware has infiltrated our network, but we are uncertain
29%
through which channel
Sensitive/confidential info was accidentally or maliciously
17%
leaked through email
An email spearphishing attack was successful in infecting one
14%
or more senior executives
Our network was successfully infiltrated through a drive-by
12%
attack from employee Web surfing
An email as part of a CEO Fraud/Business Email Compromise
11%
attack successfully tricked someone in our organization
Sensitive/confidential info was accidentally or maliciously
5%
leaked through a cloud-based tool like Dropbox
Sensitive/confidential info was accidentally or maliciously
3%
leaked through a social media application
Sensitive/confidential info was accidentally or maliciously
1%
leaked, but how it happened is not certain
None of these things happened 27%

Source: Osterman Research, Inc.

PHISHING, RANSOMWARE AND CEO FRAUD/BEC EXAMPLES

Here are a few examples of phishing, ransomware and related types of attacks that
have occurred in the recent past:

• As of August 2016, Bournemouth University has been infected with ransomware

21 times during the previous 12 months, for an average of one infection every
17 daysvii.

• Leoni AG, a large German manufacturer of optical fiber, wire and related
products revealed in August 2016 that it had been the victim of a CEO Fraud/BEC
attack. The cybercriminals responsible for the $44 million theft had apparently
studied the company’s payment processes – possibly the result of earlier
phishing attacks that had allowed them to infiltrate the corporate network – and
so were able to convince the CFO at the company’s Bistrita, Romania factory that
a spoofed email she received requesting the funds transfer was actually from one
of the company’s senior executives in Germanyviii.

• In April 2016, MedStar Health, a network of 10 hospitals in Maryland, was

infected by the SamSam (Samas) ransomware variant, taking down its systems.
One source identified a vulnerability in a JBoss Web application server as the
method that cybercriminals used to wage its successful attackix.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 3

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

• In February 2016, the payroll department at Snapchat was the victim of a

phishing attack that resulted in the company divulging sensitive information to
an unauthorized party. This information included the victims’ names, Social
Security numbers, 2015 wages earned, states of residence, states of work,
employees’ contributions to their retirement accounts, and taxes withheld,
among other sensitive datax.

• Also in February 2016, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center fell victim to the
Locky ransomware variant, which disrupted operations for roughly two weeks
before the hospital administration paid 40 Bitcoin (about $17,000) to recover its
filesxi.

• In June 2015, employees of Ubiquiti Networks were victims of multiple CEO

Fraud/BEC attacks that resulted in the company transferring $46.7 million to
cybercriminals. These spearphishing attacks, directed at individuals within
Ubiquiti’s finance department, used simple email address spoofingxii.

ISSUES THAT CONCERN DECISION MAKERS MOST

The CIOs, IT managers, IT directors, CISOs and other security decision makers we
surveyed are concerned about a wide range of security-related issues. However, as
shown in Figure 2, they are most concerned about malware infiltration through email
and Web browsing, email phishing, and ransomware. Other issues of concern include
CEO Fraud/BEC, social media phishing and more traditional avenues for data loss,
such as physical theft of devices and malicious employee activities.
Email (through
Figure 2 links and
Issues With Which IT and Security Decision Makers are Concerned
attachments in
email messages)
is the primary
threat vector for
many attacks and
many users are
suffering from
“information
overload” in
email.

Note: Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding error.

Source: Osterman Research, Inc.

WHY ARE PHISHING AND RANSOMWARE SO SUCCESSFUL?

The success of phishing and ransomware attempts is dependent upon a number of
factors: the victim’s gullibility or lack of skepticism when receiving emails and other
opportunities to be fooled by cybercriminals, the amount and quality of training they
have received, the quality of their organization’s security infrastructure, and the level
of threat intelligence they can bring to bear on potential attacks, among other

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 4

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

factors. However, there are several important reasons that phishing and ransomware
are so successful today:

• Email (through links and attachments in email messages) is the primary threat
vector for many attacks and many users are suffering from “information
overload” in email, making them less likely to carefully scrutinize phishing, CEO
Fraud/BEC and related attempts. A July 2016 Osterman Research survey of end
usersxiii found that 94 percent of users are experiencing some level of
information overload via email – 32 percent report suffering “substantial”
overload.

• Cybercriminals are simply getting better at creating content that can fool users
and bypass detection technologies. The use of logos, professionally crafted
messages, and personalization of content make phishing attempts more
believable, and so potential victims are more likely to click on the links and
attachments contained within them. One of the primary reasons that
cybercriminals are getting better is that they tend to be very well funded,
criminal enterprises – in short, they have the financial and technical resources to
improve their wares.

• Cybercriminals are developing new and better variants of ransomware, as well as

improved methods for communication to infected systems. Moving from the
more basic, locker-type ransomware that was the norm a few years ago, more
sophisticated, crypto-based variants have emerged, such as CryptoWall (2014),
CTB-Locker (2014), TeslaCrypt (2015), Samas (2016), Locky (2016) and Zepto
(2016). Moreover, ransomware-as-a-service is becoming more common – the Cybercriminals
Cerber service, for example, had infected 150,000 endpoints as of July 2016 and are developing
is pulling in profits of nearly $200,000 per monthxiv.
new and better
• Many users share too much information through social media, which provides variants of
cybercriminals with information they can use to create personalized and more
believable/harder-to-detect email messages. ransomware, as
well as improved
• Some anti-phishing and anti-ransomware solutions are not backed up with a
sufficiently robust database of real-time messaging intelligence, and so can fail to methods for
detect the latest techniques used by phishers and ransomware authors. communication
• Many users receive inadequate training about phishing and ransomware, as well
to infected
as best practices in dealing with unknown threats. Related to this is the fact that systems.
many users simply are not sufficiently skeptical when it comes to receiving
requests to do things like transfer funds, open attachments or provide sensitive
information.

• Exploit kits, such as those that are used to infect victims with ransomware, can
be used by cyber criminals that possess only a minimal skill set. These kits,
which exploit vulnerabilities in a wide range of commercially available software,
include various options, such as using the cyber criminals’ own malware or using
distribution channels offered by the criminal organization selling or renting the
exploit kit. While exploit kits can be expensive to purchase outright, they can be
rented for as little as $500 per monthxv.

• Ransomware has evolved from a focus on blocking/locking technologies that

prevent users from gaining access to their files, to crypto technologies that
actually encrypt files. The former are comparatively easy from which to recover
because of the availability of tools that will unlock infected computers. The latter,
however, are nearly impossible to defeat once infected because the cryptography
normally cannot be broken and ransomware victims are normally given only a
short period in which to pay the ransom.

Add to this the fact that phishing and ransomware authors are becoming better at
accomplishing their goal of stealing financial or other data. For example:

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 5

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

• Some threats can remain dormant for an extended period and are less likely to
be detected by many traditional anti-phishing and anti-malware solutions.

• Some types of malware can detect when they have been placed into a sandbox
and so will not execute until after having been released from the sandbox.

• Some cyber criminals coordinate their attacks among various delivery venues,
including email, social media, Web browsers, files, etc.

• One piece of malware can operate another that appears to be innocuous.

• Some malware requires user interaction, such as clicking on a button in a dialog

box, before going into action and will not be “fooled” by the simulation of user
clicks in a sandbox.

SECURITY SPENDING IN 2016 AND 2017

Decision makers clearly understand the threat of phishing, ransomware and other
security risks and are spending significantly to address them. Our research found that
the total security budget at the organizations surveyed will average $425 per
employee in 2016, increasing 10.1 percent in 2017 to $468. Moreover, our research
indicates that smaller organizations (up to 999 employees) will spend 51 percent
more per employee on security-related expenditures than larger (1,000+ employees)
organizations, underscoring the economies of scale that the latter enjoy in the
context of IT spending in general, and security spending in particular.
Our research
Our research also revealed that security capabilities are migrating to the cloud. As found that for
shown in Figure 3, 71 percent of security-related budgets are spent for on-premises
solutions in 2016, while 29 percent are spent on cloud-based solutions. However, in many
2017, decision makers anticipate that the on-premises component of their security organizations,
budget will drop to 64 percent, while the proportion devoted to the cloud will increase
to 36 percent. Underscoring the increasing importance of the cloud in the context of
key security
security, our research found that in 2016 only 12.0 percent of organizations have solutions are
budgets for cloud-based security that exceed their spending for on-premises
solutions, but this figure is expected to increase to 18.5 percent in 2017.
either not
improving over
Figure 3 time or their
Distribution of Security Budgets Devoted to On-Premises and Cloud performance is
Solutions, 2016 and 2017
actually
deteriorating.

Source: Osterman Research, Inc.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 6

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

SECURITY NEEDS SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT

IMPROVEMENTS ARE MODEST
Our research found that for many organizations, key security solutions are either not
improving over time or their performance is actually deteriorating. For example, as
shown in Figure 4, 42 percent of organizations report that their solutions designed to
block malware are not improving over time, while nine percent report that these
solutions are actually getting worse. The problem of either static or degrading
performance is even more pronounced for solutions designed to block ransomware
and Web-based threats.

Figure 4
Perceptions About Changes in Performance of Key Solutions

.…for most
organizations,
the problems they
have experienced
with both
phishing and
ransomware over
Source: Osterman Research, Inc.
the past 12
months are either
getting worse or
PHISHING AND RANSOMWARE ARE GETTING WORSE
We also discovered that for most organizations, the problems they have experienced not improving.
with both phishing and ransomware over the past 12 months are either getting worse
or not improving. As shown in Figure 5, more than one in four organizations report
that both phishing and ransomware are getting worse, while phishing and
ransomware are as bad as they were a year ago for 41 percent and 50 percent of
organizations, respectively.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 7

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

Figure 5
Changes in Phishing and Ransomware Problems Over the Past 12 Months

Note: Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding error. ….one-third or
Source: Osterman Research, Inc.
fewer of
organizations
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CURRENT SOLUTIONS?
Our research also focused on determining how effective current security capabilities
consider their
and solutions are in protecting organizations from the growing variety of threats that end user training
they face. As shown in Figure 6, one-third or fewer of organizations consider their
end user training practices in the context of ransomware, Web surfing and CEO
practices in the
Fraud/BEC to be “excellent”. The only areas in which a majority of IT decision makers context of
believe they are doing an excellent job is in eliminating malware and spam before it
can reach end users.
ransomware,
Web surfing and
Figure 6
CEO Fraud/BEC
Perceived Effectiveness of Current Security Capabilities to be “excellent”.
Capability Excellent Moderate Poor
Training end users on detecting and
27% 61% 13%
dealing with ransomware
Training end users on best practices when
28% 63% 9%
surfing the Web
Training end users on detecting and
dealing with CEO Fraud/Business Email 33% 58% 9%
Compromise
Preventing data loss via email or the Web 36% 57% 8%
Training end users on detecting and
37% 55% 9%
dealing with phishing threats
Preventing users’ personally owned mobile
devices from introducing malware into the 43% 48% 9%
corporate network
Eliminating ransomware before it reaches
50% 49% 1%
end users
Eliminating malware before it reaches end
56% 44% 0%
users

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 8

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

Figure 6 (concluded)
Perceived Effectiveness of Current Security Capabilities

Capability Excellent Moderate Poor

Eliminating spam before it reaches end
58% 43% 0%
users
AVERAGE 41% 53% 6%

Note: Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding error.

Source: Osterman Research, Inc.

TRAINING NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Our research further explored the confidence that organizations have (or don’t have)
with regard to how well employees are trained to deal with phishing and ransomware
attacks. When decision makers were asked to rate their organizations on a scale of 1
(no confidence) to 100 (very confident), we found that only 13.6 percent of
organizations scored a “90” or above in the context of phishing training
preparedness, while only 11.1 percent scored this highly with regard to ransomware
training preparedness. Moreover, we found that 17.6 percent of organizations are
either “not too confident” or “not confident at all” that they can stop phishing attacks,
while 23.8 percent feel this way about stopping ransomware attacks.

The relatively low marks for training preparedness are related to the minimal amount
of security awareness training that many employees receive. For example, as shown
in Figure 7, 52 percent of employees receive security awareness training (if they
receive it at all) a maximum of once per year.
….52 percent of
employees
Figure 7
receive security
Frequency With Which Employees Receive Security Awareness Training awareness
training (if they
receive it at all) a
maximum of
once per year.

Source: Osterman Research, Inc.

This self-assessment reveals three important points:

• Not surprisingly, we found a relationship between the number of attacks that

organizations have experienced during the past 12 months and their self-

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 9

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

assessment ratings for security: organizations that reported encountering no

ransomware, malware, hacking or other security problems during the previous
12 months gave themselves a seven percent higher rating on the perceived
effectiveness of their security capabilities than organizations that had
experienced at least one security problem.

• With an across-the-board 41 percent “excellent” rating, organizations clearly still

have a long way to go in protecting their users, networks and data assets from
phishing, ransomware, other forms of malware infiltration, data loss and other
security-related threats. Even in those areas for which decision makers give their
organizations relatively high marks, the data reveals that significant
improvements need to be made to provide more adequate protection.

• Improvement in phishing and ransomware protection is needed across the

board, and additional security awareness training is needed to help reduce the
infection rate of phishing and ransomware attacks. While training is just one
component of a successful strategy to deal with phishing and ransomware, it can
be effective: our survey found that organizations in which users receive security
awareness training only once per year or less experience an average of 18.5
security attacks per year. However, among organizations whose employees are
trained more than once per year, there is an average of 4.3 attacks.

WHERE ARE THINGS GOING FROM HERE?

Osterman Research anticipates that both phishing and ransomware attacks will
continue to increase as they have for the past several years. Specifically, we
anticipate that:

• The number of phishing emails that contain links or attachments intended to

distribute ransomware or other types of malware will increase at a significant ….significant
pace throughout the rest of 2016 and into 2017. Underscoring the rapid pace of
just ransomware development, a Symantec study found that between 2005 and
improvements
2014, about 16 ransomware families were discovered in the wild. However, 27 need to be made
were discovered in 2015 alone and another 15 were discovered in just the first
quarter of 2016xvi.
to provide more
adequate
• A growing proportion of phishing attempts will be designed to install ransomware protection.
on victims’ computers. One security company has determined that 93 percent of
phishing emails as of mid-2016 are focused on distributing ransomwarexvii.

• While the overall spam problem has been on the decline for the past several
years, spam is still an effective method to distribute malware, including
ransomware. For example, Trustwave found that during a seven-day period in
March 2016, 18 percent of the total volume of spam it detected contained
malware or malware linksxviii. We anticipate that spam will continue to be used as
a secondary method to distribute ransomware and other forms of malware.

• Moreover, we believe that the market for ransomware and other forms of
malware may be bifurcating to some extent. Because of the ease with which
non-technical cybercriminals can enter the market, we anticipate a growing trend
toward two distinct focus areas for ransomware criminals: a) “low-end”
ransomware that demands a few hundred dollars in ransom that is sent by
amateurs and other low-level criminals using basic phishing techniques; and b)
“high-end” ransomware sent by more sophisticated cybercriminals and focused
on high value targets in the healthcare, financial services, insurance and other
industries that are more likely to pay significant sums to recover their encrypted
data. We anticipate the latter will use more sophisticated spearphishing
techniques in their attempts to infect high value endpoints.

• Businesses, not individuals, will increasingly be the primary target for phishing
and ransomware, particularly the latter. Because businesses are more likely to
have critical data that must be recovered, will have the wherewithal to obtain

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 10

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

Bitcoin or other digital currencies with which to pay the ransom, and are more
likely to pay larger ransom demands, cybercriminals will focus the bulk of their
efforts on infecting these higher value targets.

RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES

Osterman Research recommends that decision makers undertake a variety of steps in
order to deal more effectively with phishing and ransomware attacks.

UNDERSTAND THE RISKS YOU FACE

While it may seem trite to offer a recommendation simply to understand the risks
that your organization faces, we cannot overstate the importance of doing just that.
Decision makers must understand that they face threats not only from phishing and
ransomware attacks, but also a growing variety of threats across all of their
communication and collaboration systems, the personal devices that their users
employ, and even users themselves. Cybercrime is an industry with significant
technical expertise, extensive funding, and a rich target environment.

DEVELOP ADEQUATE POLICIES

Many organizations have not yet developed and published detailed and thorough
policies for the various types of email, Web, collaboration, social media and other
tools that their IT departments have deployed or that they allow to be used as part of
“shadow IT”. As a result, we recommend that an early step for any organization
should be the development of detailed and thorough policies that are focused on all
of the tools that are or probably will be used in the foreseeable future. These policies While the overall
should focus on legal, regulatory and other obligations to encrypt emails and other
content if they contain sensitive or confidential data; monitor all communication for spam problem
malware that is sent to blogs, social media, and other venues; and control the use of has been on the
personal devices that access corporate systems.
decline for the
Establishing robust policies will not provide security protection per se, but it can be past several
useful in limiting the number of tools that employees use when accessing corporate
resources. In turn, these limitations can be helpful in reducing the number of ingress years, spam is
points for ransomware, other forms of malware, phishing attempts, and other content still an effective
that could pose a security risk.
method to
KEEP SYSTEMS UP-TO-DATE distribute
Application, OS and system vulnerabilities can allow cybercriminals to successfully
infiltrate corporate defenses. Every application and system should be inspected for
malware,
vulnerabilities and brought up-to-date using the latest patches from vendors. including
ransomware.
ENSURE YOU HAVE GOOD AND RECENT BACKUPS
A useful method for recovering from a ransomware attack, as well as from other
types of malware infections, is to restore from a known, good backup taken as close
as possible to the point before the infection occurred. Using a recent backup, an
endpoint can be reimaged and its data restored to a known, good state with as little
data loss as possible. While this strategy will likely result in some level of data loss
because there will normally be a gap between the most recent backup and the time
of reimaging, recent backups will minimize data loss if no other remedy can be found.

DEPLOY ANTI-PHISHING AND ANTI-RANSOMWARE

SOLUTIONS
There are good solutions available that can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud
that can detect phishing attempts, ransomware and a variety of other threats. Every
organization should implement solutions that are appropriate to its security
infrastructure requirements, but with specific emphasis on the ability to detect,
isolate and remediate phishing and ransomware threats.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 11

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

IMPLEMENT BEST PRACTICES FOR USER BEHAVIOR

Next, implement a variety of best practices to address whatever security gaps may
exist in the organization. For example:

• Employees should employ passwords that correspond to the sensitivity and risk
associated with the corporate data assets they are accessing. These passwords
should be changed on an enforced schedule under the direction of IT.

• Implement a program of robust security awareness training that will help users
to make better judgments about the content they receive through email, what
they view or click on in social media, how they access the Web, and so forth.
The goal of security awareness training is simply to help users to be more careful
about what they view, what they open and the links on which they click. While
security awareness training by itself will not completely solve an organization’s
security-related problems, it will bolster the ability for users – the first line of
defense in any security infrastructure – to be more aware of security issues and
to be less likely to respond to phishing and ransomware attempts. It is essential
to invest sufficiently in employee training so that the “human “firewall” can
provide an adequate first line of defense against increasingly sophisticated
phishing and other social engineering attacks.

• Establish communication “backchannels” for key staff members that might be

called upon to deal with corporate finances or sensitive information. For
example, if a traveling CEO sends a request to her CFO to transfer funds to a
supplier, the CFO should have an independent means of verifying the
authenticity of the request, such as texting or calling to the CEO’s smartphone.
There are good
solutions
Employees should be tested periodically to determine if their security awareness
•
training is effective.
available that
• Employees should be reminded continually about the dangers of oversharing can be deployed
content on social media. Employees’ friends might be interested in the latest
breakfast, vacation or restaurant visit that gets posted on social media – but this
on-premises or in
information could give cybercriminals the information they need to craft a the cloud that
spearphishing email. can detect
• Ensure that every employee maintains robust anti-malware defenses on their phishing
personally managed platforms if there is any chance that these employee-owned attempts,
devices will access corporate resources.
ransomware and
• Employees should be reminded and required to keep software and operating a variety of other
systems up-to-date to minimize the potential for a known exploit to infect a
system with malware. threats.
USE ROBUST THREAT INTELLIGENCE
Every organization should use historical and real-time threat intelligence to minimize
the potential for infection. Real-time threat intelligence can provide a strong defense
to protect against access to domains that have a poor reputation and, therefore, are
likely to be used by cybercriminals for spearphishing, ransomware and other forms of
attack. Threat intelligence can also be used proactively by security analysts and
others to investigate recent attacks and discover previously unknown threat sources.
Moreover, historical threat intelligence – such as a record of Whois data that includes
information on who has owned domains in the past – can be useful in conducting
cybercrime investigations.

Using both real-time and historical domain and IP-based threat intelligence is an
important adjunct for any security infrastructure because it offers protection in
several ways:

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 12

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

• Organizations can remain compliant with the variety of regulatory obligations

they face to protect employee data, customer data and other information they
own or manage.

• Good threat intelligence helps to monitor both intentional and inadvertent use of
corporate brands so that these brands can be protected.

• Threat intelligence provides forensics researchers with deep insight into how
attacks began, how cybercriminals carried out their attacks, and ways in which
future attacks can be detected early on and thwarted before they can do
damage.

SUMMARY
Phishing and ransomware are very serious threats that can cause enormous damage
to an organization’s finances, data assets and reputation. They can cause vast
disruption to an organization’s employees and IT department, cause an organization
to run afoul of industry and governmental regulations, can result in lawsuits, and – in
extreme cases – put an organization out of business. However, there are steps that
any organization can take to address phishing and ransomware so that the chances
of infection – and the consequences that will arise from it – can be mitigated.

SPONSOR OF THIS WHITE PAPER

Barracuda Networks, Inc. offers industry-leading solutions designed to solve
mainstream IT problems – efficiently and cost effectively – while maintaining a level
of customer support and satisfaction second to none. Our products span three
distinct markets, including: 1) content security, 2) networking and application www.barracuda.com
delivery, as well as 3) data storage, protection and disaster recovery.
@barracuda

While we maintain a strong heritage in email and web security appliances, our award- [email protected]
winning portfolio includes more than a dozen purpose-built solutions that support +1 888 268 4772
literally every aspect of the network – providing organizations of all sizes with true
+1 408 342 5400
end-to-end protection that can be deployed in hardware, virtual, cloud and mixed
form factors.

Barracuda is a publicly traded company (NYSE: CUDA) that provides powerful yet
easy-to-use security and storage solutions that simplify IT. CitiBank, Coca-Cola, Delta
Dental, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, L'Oreal, Liberty Tax Service, Mythbusters and
Spokane Public Schools are among the more than 150,000 organizations in 100+
countries confidently protecting their users, applications and data with Barracuda
solutions. Based in Silicon Valley – Northern California, our network is comprised of
offices in 15 countries, 1000+ employees and 5000+ partners.

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 13

 Best Practices for Dealing with
Phishing and Ransomware

© 2016 Osterman Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this document may be reproduced in any form by any means, nor may it be
distributed without the permission of Osterman Research, Inc., nor may it be resold or
distributed by any entity other than Osterman Research, Inc., without prior written authorization
of Osterman Research, Inc.

Osterman Research, Inc. does not provide legal advice. Nothing in this document constitutes
legal advice, nor shall this document or any software product or other offering referenced herein
serve as a substitute for the reader’s compliance with any laws (including but not limited to any
act, statute, regulation, rule, directive, administrative order, executive order, etc. (collectively,
“Laws”)) referenced in this document. If necessary, the reader should consult with competent
legal counsel regarding any Laws referenced herein. Osterman Research, Inc. makes no
representation or warranty regarding the completeness or accuracy of the information contained
in this document.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. ALL EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED REPRESENTATIONS, CONDITIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE
DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE DETERMINED TO BE
ILLEGAL.

REFERENCES
i
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/technology/ransomware-cyber-security/
ii
Crypto ransomware is a more recent type of ransomware that will encrypt users’ files as
compared to blocking ransomware that simply prevented access to them. However, the
goal of both types of ransomware is to prevent access to files until and unless a ransom
is paid by the victim.
iii
Source: Phishing Activity Trends Report, APWG, May 23, 2016
iv
Source: McAfee Labs Threats Report, June 2016
v
http://www.securityweek.com/history-and-statistics-ransomware
vi
https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ccips/file/872771/download
vii
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37166545
viii
https://www.leoni.com/en/press/releases/details/leoni-targeted-by-criminals/;
https://blog.knowbe4.com/cyberheist-nets-44-million-in-single-ceo-fraud-attack
ix
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/04/maryland-hospital-group-denies-ignored-warnings-
allowed-ransomware-attack/
x
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/Snapchat%20Inc%20updated%20Sample%20of%20
Employee%20Notice%20of%20Data%20Breach_Redacted_0.pdf?
xi
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-me-ln-hollywood-hospital-bitcoin-
20160217-story.html
xii
http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/spear-phishing-real-life-examples/
xiii
Results of an End User Survey About Communications Practices, Osterman Research, Inc.
xiv
http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/largest-ransomware-as-service-scheme-pulls-in-
us195000-a-month-report/385700
xv
Source: Infosec Institute
xvi
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2016/06/ransomware-dominates-the
threat-landscape/
xvii
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/93-percent-phishing-emails-ransomware/
xviii
https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Massive-Volume-of-Ransomware-
Downloaders-being-Spammed/

©2016 Osterman Research, Inc. 14