Last updated: December 1, 2021
Viruses, worms, Trojans, etc. – the number of cyber attacks is constantly increasing. In addition, they are also becoming more and more sophisticated technically.
As Heise Online reports in a current article (only available in German), cyber criminals are increasingly using a combination of data theft and encryption attacks. First, terabytes of confidential company data are stolen and then all systems are encrypted. In this way, the attackers cause double damage and can also cascade twice: One ransom payment for decryption and a second for deleting the stolen data!
But it is not only technically, the attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated, the cyber-criminal gangs are also becoming more and more professional. They are reorganising themselves and forming cartels. In doing so, individual groups specialise in certain sub-areas and then offer these as services. For example, the Darknet has huge databases of RDP accesses (Remote Desktop Protocol), from which you can order individual accesses or entire packages, just like in an online department store. In addition, some gangs even offer “ransomware as a service” deals now. Following the “Platform as a Service” and “Software as a Service” offers known from Cloudservices, complete packages of beginner-friendly tools, scripts and operating instructions are offered here – even including technical support.
Even small and medium-sized companies are affected
So if you think you are safe because the cyber criminals are only after the big companies, you are wrong! Due to the professionalization and offering of ransomware toolkits, less and less technical know-how is needed for such cyber attacks. As a result, the number of newcomers is rapidly increasing and they are mainly targeting small and medium-sized companies.
In this way, countless new threats to their own company network arise every day.
Current antivirus protection is mandatory
For this reason it is extremely important to be prepared for possible attacks. An important part of this is a professional antivirus protection software. Modern antivirus protection programs scan every system, web, e-mail and network traffic in real time for known malware.
But here is the catch: An antivirus software can of course only detect the viruses, worms, Trojans etc. that are known to it!
For this reason, the databases of antivirus protection programs are regularly expanded and rolled out via updates.
It is therefore extremely important that the antivirus software used is up-to-date – on all systems in the network!
If even one system is not up-to-date, it is enough for an attacker to infiltrate the entire network – with all the possibilities that this entails: Data theft, deletion or modification of files, encryption of systems, etc.
But how do you keep track of your network with often several dozen or even hundreds of servers and workstations?
Antivirus version with Docusnap in view
The inventory and documentation software Docusnap reads out all systems in the network regularly and recurrently. The status of each individual antivirus protection installation is automatically documented and clearly displayed in the form of a report. In this way you can easily check the activation status as well as product and signature versions.
That’s Docusnap: