WHY THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ’ S DATA IS ONLY AS SECURE AS ITS CYBER STRATEGY
Rick Vanover , Senior Director of Product Strategy , and Anthony Spiteri , Senior Global Technologist , of Veeam , tell us that with the right preparation , governments can build resiliency against ransomware attacks to avoid data loss , financial loss and reputation damage .
ver the next 10
O years , the Australian government ’ s Cybersecurity Strategy 2020 will invest A $ 1.67 billion to achieve its vision of creating a more secure online world for Australians and their businesses . As part of a threepronged approach , which will focus on the government , businesses and the community , the strategy will emphasise the role of both state and territory and local governments in protecting their systems from cyberattacks .
The increased government focus on cybersecurity is a sure sign that as our personal and corporate information shifts towards digital , so too do the threats towards it . So , while ditching the old legacy systems is a must , it must be done in the safest way possible , both for the Australian government and its citizens .
Educate your way to ransomware resilience
The education journey begins after the risks of the threat actors are identified . Remote Desktop Protocol ( RDP ) for remote access , phishing email and software updates are the three main mechanisms that can be used to enter a business system for ransomware . Knowing these can help government organisations to make strategic investments in building resiliency from an attack vector perspective .
Most IT administrators use RDP for their daily work , with many RDP servers being directly linked to the Internet . Hence Internet-connected RDP needs to stop . IT administrators can get creative on special IP addresses , redirecting RDP ports , complex passwords and more ; however , data insights reveal that over half of ransomware comes in via RDP . This tells us that exposing RDP servers to the Internet is not in alignment with a forward-thinking ransomware resiliency framework .
The other most frequent mode of entry is through phish mail , hence , deleting all suspicious emails should be the next logical step . Awareness training to identify phishing emails coupled with self-assessment tools can create an effective rapid response mechanism .
The education aspect must be taken seriously . Whether it is assessing the phish risk of an organisation , removing the most frequent attack vectors or keeping systems and software up to date is effective in avoiding the increased risk of ransomware attacks .
Implement the best backup solution
When it comes to a ransomware incident , resiliency is completely based on how and which backup solution is implemented , the behaviour of threat and the course of remediation . Implementing
Awareness training to identify phishing emails coupled with self-assessment tools can create an effective rapid response mechanism .
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