Fortinet’s 1H 2022 FortiGuard Labs Threat Landscape Report, dives into the key trends CISOs must focus on to maintain strong security postures within their organizations. Ransomware is at the top of this list, with the FortiGuard Labs team seeing nearly a 100 percent growth in ransomware variants in just six months.

According to FortiGuard Labs’ Derek Manky, “Our report shows that the ransomware threat continues to adapt with more variants enabled by Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS). RaaS, with its popularity on the dark web, continues to fuel an industry of criminals forcing organizations to consider ransomware settlements and protect against evolving techniques.”

6 solutions to help you protect your clients against ransomware
“When CISOs gain a deeper understanding of the goals and tactics used by adversaries through actionable threat intelligence, they can better align defenses to adapt and react to quickly changing attack techniques proactively,” Derek notes. He recommends the following solutions to help combat ransomware and other cyberattacks.

1. Real-time visibility, protection, and remediation coupled with zero-trust network access (ZTNA) and advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) are critical. Advanced endpoint technology can help mitigate and effectively remediate infected devices at an early stage of an attack.
2. Segmentation is also foundational since it can help limit the spread of an attack and limit lateral movement.
3. Services such as a digital risk protection service (DRPS) can be used to do external surface threat assessments, find and remediate security issues and help gain contextual insights on current and imminent threats.
4. Network detection and response (NDR) with self-learning artificial intelligence (AI) is helpful to better detect intrusions.
5. Integrated, AI and ML-driven cybersecurity platforms with advanced detection and response capabilities powered by actionable threat intelligence are important to protect across all edges of hybrid networks.
6. Cybersecurity awareness and training are also important as the threat landscape changes to keep employees and security teams up-to-date.
“Cybercriminals are evading defenses and scaling their criminal affiliate networks to maximize opportunities such as RaaS and more,” Derek emphasizes. “Speed, sophistication and scale are realities CISOs need to address.”

Learn more about Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs threat research and intelligence organization and the FortiGuard Security Subscriptions and Services portfolio.