What is double extortion ransomware? Double extortion ransomware is a sort of cyberattack in which threat actors encrypt sensitive data on a victim's computer while also stealing the data, giving the criminals more power to demand ransom payments. To understand more about it and how to protect yourself from it, this article can help you.
What Happens During a Double Extortion Attack?
Since you've known the answer to "what is double extortion ransomware?" Let's discuss what happens during a double extortion attack then.
A ransomware operator can access a victim's network using any of a number of well-known techniques and threat vectors in a double extortion ransomware assault. The operator then conducts network discovery to find high-value assets across the network and associated endpoints, secure access to them, and exfiltrate them to the operator's personal storage network.
After spreading laterally throughout the network, the threat actor encrypts the data and demands a ransom. If the ransom is not paid, the criminals will often sell the stolen data or publish it in public blogs and online forums.
How to Prevent Double Extortion Ransomware Attacks
Attacks using double extortion ransomware are clever and costly. Companies' willingness to accede to ransom demands as thieves have grown more persistent and aggressive is one reason why attacks have substantially escalated. You can still take precautions to safeguard your business's information, though.
Adopt a Zero Trust Security Policy
Adopting a policy of zero trust, or least-privileged access, is a crucial protection against cybercriminal access to your network, especially in view of the continual increase in processing in the cloud. No user or application should be implicitly trusted, which is known as zero trust. Instead, until anything is verified and given the go-ahead, it is assumed to be hostile. Access is granted based on user identity and context, and even then, only to a minimal set of resources.
A zero-trust architecture for ransomware defense relies on three principles:
Minimize the attack surface: Make users and applications invisible to the internet by securing access behind a proxy-based brokered exchange. If applications can't be discovered, there's no attack surface to exploit.
Eliminate lateral movement: Hackers can only encrypt or steal data they can see. Microsegmentation techniques reduce data exposure and therefore minimize damage. In an ideal zero-trust deployment, organizations use a proxy-based architecture to connect authenticated users directly to applications without ever exposing the network. Organizations may also deploy deception technologies to lure and expose attackers.
Completely check for efficient threat detection and data loss prevention: Examine all incoming and outgoing traffic, both encrypted and unencrypted. By doing so, you remove blind spots and increase the likelihood that attackers won't gain access to important information.
Conclusion
The concept behind the double extortion ransomware attacks is that even if the affected company believes it can fix its network without paying the attackers' requested amount, the fear that their employees' and clients' confidential information may be compromised may persuade them to cave in and pay the ransom.
Paying the ransom is not advised because there is no guarantee that the hackers behind the ransomware attack would destroy the data they have taken.
What is double extortion ransomware? Well, I hope now you know what it is.
