What is ransomware incident response?

What is ransomware incident response?

Ransomware incident response is a reactive strategy that helps organizations respond to a ransomware attack. It ensures recovery from the aftermath of an attack with reduced downtime and minimal operational disruptions. This step-by-step process involves containing ransomware propagation by isolating impacted systems and eradicating ransomware executables across the network. The response also includes a recovery process that involves decrypting encrypted files, restoring backups, and ensuring business continuity.

Significance of a ransomware incident response plan

Ransomware incident response planning is a strategic process that involves the implementation of a robust incident response mechanism that mitigates a ransomware attack before it causes irreversible damage. The ransomware response plan works in tandem with ransomware detection techniques to address and manage the consequences of a ransomware incident as soon as it is detected.

Having a response plan in place impacts two important parameters that determine a business's reputation among stakeholders: the mean time to respond to the attack and the rate of recovery from the attack. By proactively planning the response and recovery mechanisms, organizations can reduce the mean time to respond and increase the recovery rate, thereby preserving their reputation even when victimized by the attack.

Stages of ransomware response and recovery planning

An effective ransomware response and recovery plan requires distinct techniques and strategies to counteract the evolving tactics employed by ransomware actors. The six different stages of ransomware response planning include:

1. Preparation

Ransomware is a never-ending menace—you never know when you might become a victim. So, it is important for businesses to stay ahead of ransomware actors and be prepared to defend against the attack. The preparation stage includes the following processes:

• Define the roles and responsibilities of individuals, teams, and other stakeholders in the event of a ransomware attack.
• Carry out periodic risk assessment and vulnerability tests to ensure the security of all systems.
• Implement data protection policies and establish access controls to secure sensitive data storage and backup systems.
• Educate employees and other stakeholders about staying aware of potential indications of ransomware attacks.

2. Detection and identification

Ransomware detection and identification involves techniques to flag potential signs of ransomware. This involves the following:

• Detect phishing emails using email filtering and spam blocking tools.
• Monitor network traffic to analyze and block suspicious data packets.
• Leverage anomaly detection to identify abnormal user and entity behavior.
• Utilize file integrity monitoring to detect suspicious file activities.
• Monitor sensitive data storage and backups for unauthorized access and changes.

You may wish to check out our page on ransomware detection to learn about proven detection techniques to identify signs of a ransomware attack.

3. Containment and eradication

After detecting a ransomware strain, the first step of response is ransomware containment. This stage involves identifying the ransomware and isolating affected systems from the network. It also includes disconnecting all network connections, like ethernet, Wi-Fi, and bluetooth, and disabling all system updates and maintenance operations to prevent the propagation of the infection across the network. It also involves network investigation and system inspection to examine all impacted areas.

4. Recovery

Ransomware recovery is the most important stage of the response plan. Though predominantly focused on the retrieval and restoration of encrypted files and backups, it also involves business recovery at the macro level. This includes recovering from financial, reputational, and regulatory damages that were caused due to business discontinuity, operational down time, and regulatory violations and penalties.

5. Post incident analysis

This stage involves documentation and forensic analysis of the ransomware attack to ensure such incidents do not occur in the future. It is a retrospective stage to understand and analyze the security gaps and weak links in the network that led to the attack. Forensic analysis tools are used to identify the attack kill chain and establish prevention, detection, and response techniques accordingly.

6. Communication

A ransomware attack is a cybercriminal offense that needs to be reported immediately to the appropriate authorities. In some cases, the authorities also provide assistance in recovering your encrypted files. It is important to disclose the attack to all internal and external stakeholders, as well as the media, to ensure transparency. Additionally, this disclosure raises awareness in the community and helps prevent other businesses from becoming victims of similar attacks.

Ransomware incident response checklist

Here is a three-step ransomware response checklist that can help you respond to a ransomware attack effectively.

Step 1: Identification and analysis

• Identify the infected system and isolate it from the network.
• Isolate all unaffected critical systems from the impacted systems and networks.
• Triage the affected systems based on their significance to business continuity and the severity of the infection.
• Determine the nature of the files and data contained in the systems and prioritize systems with highly sensitive and confidential data.
• Collect logs relevant to the attack from workstations, servers, and file systems that include details on suspicious process spawning, malicious file executions, and anomalous file changes and renames.
• Analyze the logs to identify the indicators of compromise (IoCs) of the attack, like the command and control domain name; the IP address; malicious file names, sizes, and extensions; and registry entries.
• Verify the IoCs against trusted threat intelligence feeds to identify the ransomware strain.
• If identified as known ransomware, follow the mitigation steps that are already available.
• If identified as a new ransomware variant, it requires in-depth analysis of the strain and its kill chain to determine a further course of response action.

Step 2: Reporting and communication

• Report the incident immediately to cyber authorities and associated committees in the industry. By doing so, you can also seek the assistance of the cyber authorities to mitigate the attack.
• Communicate the severity of the attack to all stakeholders and members of the supply chain to ensure that their networks are secured and can defend against any kind of attack propagation.
• Disclose the damages incurred to the industry's community, the media, and the public to prevent reputational backlashes.

Step 3: Mitigation and recovery

• Disconnect the infected systems from all wired or wireless connections.
• Take the network offline at the switch level if multiple systems are affected and it is not feasible to disconnect individual systems manually.
• Power down the systems if it is not possible to disconnect them or take them offline immediately.
• Blocklist malicious IPs, and block traffic from unknown sources.
• Verify and upgrade the security configurations in firewalls, IDSs, IPSs, and other security applications.
• Analyze all storage drives, file systems, and folders to eliminate malicious executables and fileless malware.
• Restore encrypted data and backups using relevant decryption tools.
• Analyze impacted files and folders to ensure the integrity of the restored data.
• Carry out system rebuilding and restoration as well as testing and validation to resume normal system activity.
• Issue password resets for all affected systems, and conduct vulnerability scans and apply patches to close all security gaps.

What is a ransomware response playbook?

A ransomware response playbook is a step-by-step guide that helps businesses respond to ransomware attacks effectively. It outlines the processes, roles, and actions needed during an incident to mitigate damage and facilitate recovery. It also demonstrates the different ways to respond to a ransomware attack in different stages of its propagation. Though there are numerous response playbook templates available online, it is more advantageous for organizations to prepare a response playbook that is customized for their business and network.

Related solutions

ManageEngine Log360, a comprehensive SIEM solution with advanced DLP and UEBA capabilities, helps you proactively detect and respond to potential signs of a ransomware attack. Log360's predefined correlation rules, alert profiles, and audit reports on ransomware activities assist in identifying ransomware in the early stages of the kill chain. With prebuilt incident response workflows, Log360 not only detects ransomware but also aids in responding to the attack and mitigating its consequences. Sign up for a personalized demo of Log360 to learn more.