Protecting Against Pseudo Ransomware

Organizations can protect themselves against pseudo ransomware by understanding their attack surface and reducing exposure with a defense-in-depth strategy, Warner said.

“In the end, these attacks are no different from other modern attacks against infrastructure,” he said. “They must land on the machine, exploit and run their own processes to perform the desired action, in this case wiping the machine.”

A threat detection and response platform that ties to known attacker techniques such as the MITRE framework is a crucial component of this strategy, Warner said.

“In Trellix’s report, there were several techniques that the threat actors used to execute the attack — including malicious PowerShell usage, disabling firewalls and modifying registry settings,” he said. “Utilizing tools to gain and expand visibility into your environments … is paramount when these types of campaigns.”