The role of the channel in the fight against ransomware

Article submitted by Bart van Moorsel, Cybersecurity Solution Design Specialist, Tech Data, EMEA

With the shift to hybrid working and more businesses moving their operations online, cyber criminals have done what cyber criminals do and taken advantage of the confusion to ramp up their use of ransomware attacks. The pressure on organisations is often too much for them to manage on their own, and so the channel has a critical role to play in helping their customers navigate this treacherous threat landscape.

Take a people first approach

The most common means by which cyber criminals access an organisation continues to be through email. After so much talk of cyber hygiene and investment in staff awareness and training, this should not be the case. Channel organisations need to be taking a more proactive role in ensuring that their customers are not simply going through the motions when it comes to giving employees the tools to identify and avoid phishing attacks.

This is especially true given that cyber criminals are beginning to use more sophisticated, targeted approaches to carry out their attacks. For example, social media is being used as a way to build up rapport with their targets, before tricking them into downloading a malicious payload.

Training needs to be regular, with employees kept up to date with novel phishing campaigns and targets. Given that the human element of most organisation’s cybersecurity posture remains the weakest part, it is high time this was addressed for good.

Cooperation within organisations

Ransomware attacks are no longer an issue for the IT team alone. The entire business is affected. Channel partners need to encourage more collaboration between business units to prepare for an attack.

With ransomware gangs now using triple, or even quadruple, extortion techniques, businesses need a playbook in place that dictates how everyone from IT to sales and customer relationship management reacts if a breach were to occur. The channel is perfectly placed to advise their customers on what this should look like, and in doing so should build deeper relationships with their customers in the process.

Identify the weaknesses

Testing an organisation’s systems for vulnerabilities should not be an issue with the range of tools that are available today. Where the channel can support in this regard is ensuring that testing is carried out regularly so there is an up-to-date overview of problem areas.

Businesses should determine how often these tests should be taking place depending on how often their IT environment changes. For example, if a business is cloud-based, their environment would need to be checked more often as they constantly update their systems, compared to a business that is not.

Furthering your ransomware offering

A security gap still exists for many businesses and the channel must be proactive in helping their customers protect themselves against any potential attacks. For resellers taking their first steps into the cybersecurity market, leveraging click-to-run solutions is an easy way to begin to protect themselves while building up their own skills.

These ready built solutions allow resellers to tailor pre-configured solutions to their customer’s security needs and saves time compared to building and configuring a ransomware solution from the ground up. As well as this, these solutions offer resellers a way to decrease their operating costs from implementation and will result in them building a profitable cybersecurity business faster.