Warns that Organizations Need to Change Their Cybersecurity Models to Avoid Future Attacks
Offers Simple Test Companies Can Implement to See If Their Current Solutions Are Viable
Snohomish, Wash. – Cyemptive Technologies, Inc., a provider of pre-emptive cybersecurity products and technology and winner of the Department of Homeland Security’s national competition for most innovative border security-related solution in the market, announced that the recent Colonial Pipeline and JBS meat processing ransomware attacks should not have happened, and advised that entities need to change their model for cybersecurity to avoid damage from such attacks in the future.
“The current approach to cybersecurity is fundamentally flawed as demonstrated by so many organizations using the latest in cybersecurity protection still getting attacked and compromised,” said Rob Pike, founder and CEO of Cyemptive Technologies. “With the speed that ransomware and other malware variants are evolving, today’s cybersecurity solutions simply can’t keep up with identifying threats, let alone eliminating them, in time to prevent damage.”
According to industry research, even prior to the COVID pandemic, ransomware attacks have been on the rise, growing by more than 20% from last year. The pace has increased over the ensuing months as hackers have taken advantage of the pandemic with more and more people working from home. Ransomware attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and current technologies are failing to keep up with the newest variations because the current technologies rely only on known signatures, API monitoring and/or machine learning to detect ransomware, all occurring after the systems have been infiltrated.
“While scanning for signatures of known variants may be somewhat effective against existing types of ransomware, such an approach is not effective in stopping emerging and unknown variations,” said Pike. “In addition, variations such as ‘sleeper’ ransomware will carefully elude Artificial Intelligence (AI) detection by slowly infiltrating files including into back-ups, before activating.”
“The industry needs to provide a comprehensive zero trust process that combines multiple technologies to prevent system entry and exit on a real time basis,” said Pike. “We need a combination of real time file based scanning, perimeter protection and endpoint monitoring.”
Cyemptive offers this simple method organizations can use to test the effectiveness of their current ransomware protection:
- Download any embedded encryption library like AEP or AESCRYPT and encrypt a file.
- Encrypt a second file.
- Rename both files with extensions to be anything different, such as ‘.jpg’.
- Save the files on a USB drive and insert the drive into any computer on your network.
- Transfer the files by email if USB is disabled.
- Request that your ransomware protection provider check the USB drive or the email attachments, or run your ransomware protection software. Were the encrypted files detected?
- If the answer is no, then your current ransomware protection is not protecting you.
“Cyemptive’s integrated, zero trust, real time detection and remediation approach will solve the ransomware problem in today’s marketplace including current and future zero day attacks,” said Pike.
“Hackers clearly have the advantage against today’s technologies,” said Bryan Seely, Cyemptive’s Senior Security Architect and well-known cybersecurity author and expert. “It is time for a change. Cyemptive has the answer – and we provide financially-backed SLAs to support our guaranteed detection and remediation of the problem.”
About Cyemptive Technologies
Founded in 2014, Cyemptive is a provider of pre-emptive cybersecurity products and technology. With a leadership team comprised of executives from several of the world’s most powerful technology and security organizations, including the former CIO of Microsoft and the former Chief Computer Architect for the National Security Agency, the company’s focus is on delivering a preemptive, alternative approach to security. It is the winner of the Department of Homeland Security’s Border Security Technology Consortium (BSTC) competition for most innovative border security-related solution in the market. More information about Cyemptive Technologies is available at www.cyemptive.com.
