I think that we can all agree, whether you've experienced it within your enterprise or not, ransomware is a problem. It's one of those things that you hope never happens to you, that you hope you never have to deal with, and you give a sigh of relief when you hear that someone else got hit.
The problem with that is that hoping isn't preparing.
Wait...what? Prepare for a ransomware attack? How would someone go about doing that? Well, consider the quote from the movie "Blade":Once you understand the nature of a thing, you know what it's capable of.
This is true for ransomware, as well as Deacon Frost. If you understand what ransomware does (encrypts files), and how it gets into an infrastructure, you can take some simple (relative to your infrastructure and culture, of course) to prepare for such an incident to occur. Interestingly enough, many of these steps are the same that you'd use to prepare for any type of incident.
First, some interesting reading and quotes...such as from this article:
The organization paid, and then executives quickly realized a plan needed to be put in place in case this happened again. Most organizations are not prepared for events like this that will only get worse, and what we see is usually a reactive response instead of proactive thinking.
....and...
I witnessed a hospital in California be shut down because of ransomware. They paid $2 million in bitcoins to have their network back.
The take-aways are "not prepared" and "$2 million"...because it would very likely have cost much less than $2 million to prepare for such attacks.
The major take-aways from the more general ransomware discussion should be that:
1. Ransomware encrypts files. That's it.
2. Like other malware, those writing and deploying ransomware work to keep their product from being detected.
3. The business model of ransomware will continue to evolve as methods are changed and new methods are developed, while methods that continue to work will keep being used.
Wait...ransomware has a business model? You bet it does! Some ransomware (Locky, etc.) is spread either through malicious email attachments, or links that direct a user's browser to a web site. Anyone who does process creation monitoring on an infrastructure likely sees this. In a webcast I gave last spring (as well as in subsequent presentations), I included a slide that illustrated the process tree of a user opening an email attachment, and then choosing to "Enable Content", at which point the ransomware took off.
Other ransomware (Samas, Le Chiffre, CryptoLuck) is deployed through a more directed means, bypassing email all together. An intruder infiltrates an infrastructure through a vulnerable perimeter system, RDP, TeamViewer, etc., and deploys the ransomware in a dedicated fashion. In the case of Samas ransomware, the adversary appears to have spent time elevating privileges and mapping the infrastructure in order locate systems to which they'd deploy the ransomware. We've seen this in the timeline where the adversary would on one day, simply blast out the ransomware to a large number of systems (most appeared to be servers).
The Ransomware Economy
There are a couple of other really good posts on Secureworks blog regarding the Samas ransomware (here, and here). The second blog post, by Kevin Strickland, talks about the evolution of the Samas ransomware; not long ago, I ran across this tweet that let us know that the evolution that Kevin talked about hasn't stopped. This clearly illustrates that developers are continuing to "provide a better (i.e., less detectable) product", as part of the economy of ransomware. The business models that are implemented the ransomware economy will continue to evolve, simply because there is money to be had.
There is also a ransomware economy on the "blue" (defender) side, albeit one that is markedly different from the "red" (attacker) side.
The blue-side economy does not evolve nearly as fast as the red-side. How many victims of ransomware have not reported their incident to anyone, or simply wiped the box and moved on? How many of those with encrypted files have chosen to pay the ransom rather than pay to have the incident investigated? By the way, that's part of the red-side economy...make it more cost effective to pay the ransom than the cost of an investigation.
As long as the desire to obtain money is stronger that the desire to prevent that from happening, the red-side ransomware economy will continue to outstrip that of the blue-side.
Preparation
Preparation for a ransomware attack is, in many ways, no different from preparing for any other computer security incident.
The first step is user awareness. If you see something, say something. If you get an odd email with an attachment that asks you to "enable content", don't do it! Instead, raise an alarm, say something.
The second step is to use technical means to protect yourself. We all know that prevention works for only so long, because adversaries are much more dedicated to bypassing those prevention mechanisms than we are to paying to keep those protection mechanisms up to date. As such, augmenting those prevention mechanisms with detection can be extremely effective, particularly when it comes to definitively nailing down the initial infection vector (IIV). Why is this important? Well, in the last couple of months, we've not only seen the deliver mechanism of familiar ransomware changing, but we've also seen entirely new ransomware variants infecting systems. If you assume that the ransomware is getting in as an email attachment, then you're going to direct resources to something that isn't going to be at all effective.
Case in point...I recently examined a system infected with Odin Locky, and was told that the ransomware could not have gotten in via email, as a protection application had been purchased specifically for that purpose. What I found was that the ransomware did, indeed, get on the system via email; however, the user had accessed their AOL email (bypassing the protection mechanism), and downloaded and executed the malicious attachment.
Tools such as Sysmon (or anything else that monitors process creation) can be extremely valuable when it comes to determining the IIV for ransomware. Many variants will delete themselves after files are encrypted, (attempt to) delete VSCs, etc., and being able to track the process train back to it's origin can be extremely valuable in preventing such things in the future. Again, it's about dedicating resources where they will be the most effective. Why invest in email protections when the ransomware is getting on your systems as a result of a watering hole attack, or strategic web compromise? Or what if it's neither of those? What if the system had been compromised, a reverse shell (or some other access method, such as TeamViewer) installed and the system infected through that vector?
Ransomware will continue to be an issue, and new means for deploying are being developed all the time. The difference between ransomware and, say, a targeted breach is that you know almost immediately when you've had files encrypted. Further, during targeted breaches, the adversary will most often copy your critical files; with ransomware, the files are made unavailable to anyone. In fact, if you can't decrypt/recover your files, there's really no difference between ransomware and secure deletion of your files.
We know that on the blue-side, prevention eventually fails. As such, we need to incorporate detection into our security posture, so that if we can't prevent the infection or recover our files, we can determine the IIV for the ransomware and address that issue.
Addendum, 30 Oct: As a result of an exchange with (and thanks to) David Cowen, I think that I can encapsulate the ransomware business model to the following statement:
The red-side business model for ransomware converts a high number of low-value, blue-side assets into high-value attacker targets, with a corresponding high ROI (for the attacker).
What does mean? I've asked a number of folks who are not particularly knowledgeable in infosec if there are any files on their individual systems without which they could simply not do their jobs, or without access to those files, their daily work would significantly suffer. So far, 100% have said, "yes". Considering this, it's abundantly clear that attackers have their own reciprocal Pyramid of Pain that they apply to defenders; that is, if you want to succeed (i.e., get paid), you need to impact your target in such a manner that it is more cost-effective (and less painful) to pay the ransom than it is perform any alternative. In most cases, the alternative amounts to changing corporate culture.