RANSOMWARE RESPONSE AND PLAYBOOKS
Introduction
Ransomware is a growing cyber threat requiring proactive response planning. Organizations should have playbooks outlining response procedures, conduct simulations to test readiness, invest in prevention controls, and balance legal/ethical considerations around paying ransoms.
Attacks are increasingly common, with impacts ranging from minor disruption to complete shutdown of operations. Proper planning and preparation can greatly reduce damage. Key concepts include having an incident response playbook, conducting simulations, training staff, hardening infrastructure, maintaining backups, and weighing options around paying ransoms. Additionally, legal obligations around duty of care require reasonable cybersecurity readiness.
Ransomware emerged as a cyber threat in the late 2000s, with early attacks being simplistic lockouts of devices or data. By the mid 2010s, more sophisticated ransomware like CryptoLocker used robust encryption making recovery without keys near impossible. Recent years have seen ransomware become a lucrative criminal enterprise, with victims ranging from municipalities to school districts to hospitals. High profile cases like the 2021 Colonial Pipeline attack have raised awareness of ransomware's potential to disrupt critical infrastructure.
