Ransomware and Cyber Extortion: Response and Prevention

Protect Your Organization from Devastating Ransomware and Cyber Extortion Attacks Ransomware and other cyber extortion crimes have reached epidemic proportions. The secrecy surrounding them has left many organizations unprepared to respond. Your actions in the minutes, hours, days, and months after an attack may determine whether you'll ever recover. You must be ready. With this book, you will be. Ransomware and Cyber Extortion is the ultimate practical guide to surviving ransomware, exposure extortion, denial-of-service, and other forms of cyber extortion. Drawing heavily on their own unpublished case library, cyber security experts Sherri Davidoff, Matt Durrin, and Karen Sprenger guide you through responding faster, minimizing damage, investigating more effectively, expediting recovery, and preventing it from happening in the first place. Proven checklists help your security teams act swiftly and effectively together, throughout the entire lifecycle--whatever the attack and whatever the source. Understand different forms of cyber extortion and how they evolved Quickly recognize indicators of compromise Minimize losses with faster triage and containment Identify threats, scope attacks, and locate "patient zero" Initiate and manage a ransom negotiation--and avoid costly mistakes Decide whether to pay, how to perform due diligence, and understand risks Know how to pay a ransom demand while avoiding common pitfalls Reduce risks of data loss and reinfection Build a stronger, holistic cybersecurity program that reduces your risk of getting hacked This guide offers immediate value to everyone involved in prevention, response, planning, or policy: CIOs, CISOs, incident responders, investigators, negotiators, executives, legislators, regulators, law enforcement professionals, and others. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Table of Contents:
Preface xxi Acknowledgments xxvii About the Authors xxix Chapter 1: Impact 1 1.1 A Cyber Epidemic 3 1.2 What Is Cyber Extortion? 4 1.3 Impacts of Modern Cyber Extortion 7 1.4 Victim Selection 15 1.5 Scaling Up 18 1.6 Conclusion 24 1.7 Your Turn! 24 Chapter 2: Evolution 27 2.1 Origin Story 28 2.2 Cryptoviral Extortion 29 2.3 Early Extortion Malware 30 2.4 Key Technological Advancements 31 2.5 Ransomware Goes Mainstream 38 2.6 Ransomware-as-a-Service 39 2.7 Exposure Extortion 40 2.8 Double Extortion 43 2.9 An Industrial Revolution 45 2.10 Conclusion 60 2.11 Your Turn! 61 Chapter 3: Anatomy of an Attack 63 3.1 Anatomy Overview 63 3.2 Entry 65 3.3 Expansion 72 3.4 Appraisal 76 3.5 Priming 77 3.6 Leverage 80 3.7 Extortion 85 3.8 Conclusion 88 3.9 Your Turn! 88 Chapter 4: The Crisis Begins! 91 4.1 Cyber Extortion Is a Crisis 92 4.2 Detection 93 4.3 Who Should Be Involved? 94 4.4 Conduct Triage 98 4.5 Assess Your Resources 102 4.6 Develop the Initial Response Strategy 105 4.7 Communicate 107 4.8 Conclusion 112 4.9 Your Turn! 112 Chapter 5: Containment 115 5.1 The Need for Speed 116 5.2 Gain Access to the Environment 117 5.3 Halting Encryption/Deletion 118 5.4 Disable Persistence Mechanisms 121 5.5 Halting Data Exfiltration 123 5.6 Resolve Denial-of-Service Attacks 124 5.7 Lock Out the Hackers 125 5.8 Hunt for Threats 129 5.9 Taking Stock 133 5.10 Conclusion 134 5.11 Your Turn! 134 Chapter 6: Investigation 137 6.1 Research the Adversary 138 6.2 Scoping 146 6.3 Breach Investigation or Not? 150 6.4 Evidence Preservation 152 6.5 Conclusion 160 6.6 Your Turn! 161 Chapter 7: Negotiation 163 7.1 It's a Business 164 7.2 Establish Negotiation Goals 165 7.3 Outcomes 169 7.4 Communication Methods 171 7.5 Pressure Tactics 173 7.6 Tone, Timeliness, and Trust 176 7.7 First Contact 178 7.8 Sharing Information 179 7.9 Common Mistakes 182 7.10 Proof of Life 183 7.11 Haggling 186 7.12 Closing the Deal 189 7.13 Conclusion 190 7.14 Your Turn! 191 Chapter 8: Payment 193 8.1 To Pay or Not to Pay? 194 8.2 Forms of Payment 197 8.3 Prohibited Payments 198 8.4 Payment Intermediaries 201 8.5 Timing Issues 202 8.6 After Payment 204 8.7 Conclusion 205 8.8 Your Turn! 206 Chapter 9: Recovery 209 9.1 Back up Your Important Data 210 9.2 Build Your Recovery Environment 211 9.3 Set up Monitoring and Logging 214 9.4 Establish Your Process for Restoring Individual Computers 217 9.5 Restore Based on an Order of Operations 219 9.6 Restoring Data 224 9.7 Decryption 227 9.8 It's Not Over 234 9.9 Adapt 235 9.10 Conclusion 236 9.11 Your Turn! 236 Chapter 10: Prevention 239 10.1 Running an Effective Cybersecurity Program 240 10.2 Preventing Entry 250 10.3 Detecting and Blocking Threats 258 10.4 Operational Resilience 261 10.5 Reducing Risk of Data Theft 267 10.6 Solving the Cyber Extortion Problem 269 10.7 Conclusion 274 10.8 Your Turn! 274 Afterword 277 Checklist A: Cyber Extortion Response 279 Checklist B: Resources to Create in Advance 285 Checklist C: Planning Your Response 291 Checklist D: Running an Effective Cybersecurity Program 293 Index 299