The Quick Guide to Ransomware Resilience

‍Who’s Teaching You?

People typically learn from one of these great teachers: instruction or experience. Organizations are no exception. When it comes to cybersecurity, we would rather learn from instruction. But often experience knocks at the door, and rather than drawing on previous instruction, we enroll in the school of hard knocks. Ransomware attacks have progressively become more insidious with the advent of double-extortion attacks. More organizations are facing both direct and indirect fire from these attacks. Even Healthcare, once known as off-limits, is no longer safe. But what if you had a resource readily available to help you avoid learning the hard way? What if key instructional takeaways could be gathered from some of the most recent and hardest hitting ransomware events?

Not Just Another Day

In February 2024, Change Healthcare faced a breach that no one saw coming. For nine days, attackers moved silently through systems, touching hundreds of thousands of healthcare facilities and leaving millions of Americans potentially exposed. Critical operations ground to a halt, billions of dollars were on the line, and the scale of the intrusion quickly sent shockwaves through the healthcare industry.

By the time the breach was discovered, systems were paralyzed, sensitive data was at risk, and the event became a stark reminder that even the most trusted digital infrastructure can be vulnerable. For Change Healthcare, and for healthcare nationwide, it was a wake-up call.

A silent strike hit CDK Global in June 2024, the SaaS system powering 15,000 car dealerships. One day, the network hummed as usual; the next, critical systems were down, leaving dealerships frozen and scrambling. An attempted recovery only made things worse, as unseen attackers struck again, forcing a complete shutdown.  

The true cost went far beyond the initial disruption. Dealerships faced cascading losses; major lawsuits emerged, and the question lingered: how quickly is too quickly when bringing systems back online?

These unfortunate incidents are just another grim reminder that learning from others’ experience may be key in preventing it from knocking at your own front door.  

Innovation from Necessity

The key aspect of ransomware resilience is that defensive evolution requires the ability to adapt rapidly. The attacks mentioned brought to light several key factors. This paved the way to innovate newer ways to detect and respond to ransomware attacks. However, since 2023 threat actors have only further refined their tactics to outwit and outplay defensive postures. Turns out “it won’t happen to us” has happened to a lot more organizations: Ascension, Blue Yonder, and yes, even Boeing.  

From the inside out, Halcyon redefined ransomware defense by studying each of these attacks. Halcyon goes beyond the headlines, unpacking five of the latest ransomware attacks. From decryption to detecting data theft, we’ll explore the lessons that reshaped defense.  

Experience is a great teacher, but she charges a fortune. Ready to get ahead without the hard lessons? Download our eBook, Five Ransomware Attacks That Changed Everything, And Lessons Learned and see how we’re reshaping the future of ransomware protection.

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