Security

CISA announced the Pre-Ransomware Notifications initiative

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the Pre-Ransomware Notifications service to help organizations stop ransomware attacks before damage occurs.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced a new Pre-Ransomware Notification initiative that aims at alerting organizations of early-stage ransomware attacks.

The principle behind the initiative is simple, ransomware actors initially gain access to the target organization, then they take some time before stealing or encrypting data. The time-lapse between initial access to a network and the encryption of the systems can last from hours to days.

Being able to notify the victims in this time window can help them to limit the damages caused by the ransomware attack.

“This window gives us time to warn organizations that ransomware actors have gained initial access to their networks.” reads the announcement made by the Us agency. “These early warnings can enable victims to safely evict the ransomware actors from their networks before the actors have a chance to encrypt and hold critical data and systems at ransom. Early warning notifications can significantly reduce potential loss of data, impact on operations, financial ramifications, and other detrimental consequences of ransomware deployment.”

The CISA Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) collects information about potential early-stage ransomware activity from multiple sources, including the research community, infrastructure providers, and cyber threat intelligence firms.

Then the field personnel across the country notify the victim organization and provide specific mitigation guidance. The agency will also provide notification to organizations outside of the United States through its international CERT partners.

Since the start of 2023, CISA notified over 60 entities across the energy, healthcare, water/wastewater, education, and other sectors about potential early-stage ransomware attacks. It was a success bacause many of the alerted organizations remediated the attack before encryption or exfiltration took place.

“Continuing to enhance our collective cyber defense is contingent upon persistent collaboration and information sharing between partners across government and the private sector.” concludes the announcement. “To enable the broader cyber community to benefit from valuable threat intelligence, we urge organizations to report observed activity, including ransomware indicators of compromise and TTPs, to CISA or our federal law enforcement partners, including the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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