Defending Against Ransomware with Cloud-Based Workspaces

Separating ransomware from the actual user environment, applications, and data is a fundamental defense and one that organizations should use against these threats. WaaS solutions architected to defend against these threats provide the business with additional confidence that they will not find themselves facing significant downtime attempting to perform a recovery. Such solutions help organizations avoid these threats by elevating administrative controls and providing a comprehensive disaster recovery mechanism.

1. Dissevering administrative operations from computer client reach on the network;
2. Disallowing the installation of ransomware (or other malware) executables on the user’s device or network; and
3. Counteracting new ransomware derivations, should they attempt to circumvent recognized deployment schemes.

By isolating administrative functions from client platforms on the network, this helps to ensure that users who lack the credentials to run such executables cannot. This stops inadvertent installation of the ransomware software and prevents the infection of files. This approach places the authority to install new applications in the hands of an authorized IT administrator. Those on the network who access the cloud-based workspace have the ability to access every application installed by the administrator from the desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone of their choosing, but lack the ability to install applications directly. As a result, this safeguards the IT environment against such ransomware executables.

In the event that ransomware does somehow infect a system on the network, the solution’s comprehensive backup and disaster recovery capabilities are able to quickly recover the entire IT environment back to its previous state. In such an event, all IT administrators would need to do is re-image the terminal server to the last recorded backup before the ransomware attack —an operation that typically requires only five minutes. The solution stores an offsite disaster recovery copy of client data which allows the organization’s complete IT environment, including previously corrupted/encrypted files, to be re-configured immediately.

Regardless of whether the threat is external or internal, leveraging advanced WaaS solutions for greater administrative control over access to the network provides additional levels of protection against what can be a calamitous malware infiltration. By separating the lines of access to mission critical data and applications, advanced WaaS platforms not only provide new measures of accountability for businesses, but mitigate the threat potential from malware that continues to menace organizations of every size worldwide.