How to Stop Ransomware | CSO Online

Security Service Edge (SSE) is a relatively new category. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a consolidation of three existing security categories – Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Zero Trust Network Architecture (ZTNA), and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) – or a deconstruction of SASE separates Security features of network installations.

Whatever the case, SSE isn’t just an arbitrary addition to the security industry’s alphabet soup: it’s a highly relevant advancement in enterprise security that recognizes what organizations need to protect their distributed users, applications, and workloads from today’s ever-evolving threats.

In this three-part series, we outline three case studies that show why SSE is so important. Here’s a blog on protecting hybrid work and here’s on stopping data breaches. In this blog, we’ll draw on the full SSE feature set with a case study into something that’s high on the list of concerns for most security teams these days: ransomware.

How SSE stops ransomware

SSE provides critical protection across the lifecycle of ransomware attacks.

A ransomware attack begins when attackers infiltrate an endpoint or application from the Internet through a phishing attack, exploit, or brute force. SSE’s secure web gateway capabilities help prevent this through inspection, ransomware protection, and least privilege access control.

However, today’s attackers are sophisticated and can easily create new encrypted malware variants. Therefore, it’s important that your security controls can inspect all traffic (encrypted or unencrypted) inline and use tools like sandboxing and isolation to isolate and analyze unknown threats.

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Next, attackers move through your network to escalate their privileges and access your valuable data. A zero-trust network architecture can mitigate damage at this stage by preventing attackers from moving laterally and allowing access only to specific applications, not other endpoints. If an attacker manages to infiltrate an endpoint, stopping lateral movement will contain the attack – making containment much easier and greatly reducing the likelihood of disrupting your business.

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Finally, ransomware actors carry out their attack. Most ransomware attacks today involve dual blackmail tactics, where attackers steal data before encrypting so many valuable files that they can access across various endpoints and network resources. Attackers threaten to publish the files they stole, which gives them an advantage since they can no longer restore and deal with encrypted files from backup. CASB and DLP capabilities identify vulnerable data and inspect outbound traffic to ensure your resources remain secure and prevent any attempts at exfiltration to malicious servers.

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The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange is the industry’s most comprehensive SSE solution.

Zscaler’s protection begins before the attack even begins: Its cloud-native, proxy-based architecture reduces the attack surface by making internal applications invisible to the internet, eliminating potential attack vectors. Next, Zscaler provides full inspection and authentication of all traffic, including encrypted traffic, to keep bad actors out. Zscaler securely connects users and entities directly to applications—not networks—to eliminate the possibility of side-to-side movement, and additionally surrounds your applications with realistic decoys. It then inspects all outbound traffic to cloud applications to prevent data theft.

By unifying these technologies through the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, organizations get unmatched ransomware protection and visibility from a single platform that reduces IT complexity and optimizes performance.

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Zscaler is proud to be recognized for the comprehensive risk mitigation we provide to our customers, and we’re improving every day. Our experts continually build new capabilities to stay ahead of attackers using advanced AI powered by data from the world’s largest inline security cloud.

Learn how Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange can protect your business.