Protect Your AWS Architecture and Services Against Ransomware
Ransomware attacks have increased dramatically over the past few years, and there are no signs of them abating. The costs from worldwide ransomware attacks are estimated to exceed $265 billion by 2031. This rampant growth is greatly attributed to the ever-expanding threat landscape that attackers use to infect your networks, applications, and APIs. Software vulnerabilities, brute-force credential attacks, and phishing are some of the most common entry points, and upping your defenses against these attack vectors can reduce your risk of ransomware.
Block Attacks at the Network Layer
Ransomware attacks are often complicated to detect because most enter through encrypted channels—and 90% of network traffic is encrypted. Gaining visibility into encrypted traffic is critical to mounting a comprehensive ransomware defense.
You can deploy and configure F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator in your AWS cloud for SSL/TLS decryption, offloading, and intelligent traffic steering to security inspection tools, such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), or advanced threat detection solutions for inspection of potential threats. This inspection of encrypted traffic can block ransomware delivered via phishing emails by identifying infected attachments or stopping access to a malicious site if a link is clicked by an unsuspecting user.
A significant advantage to deploying BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator on AWS is the highly scalable AWS platform. This increases the computing power to execute performance-intensive operations such as traffic decryption and re-encryption. BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator can also enforce secure access controls and authentication mechanisms to protect your AWS resources.
Don’t Forget to Protect the Application Interface
Advanced application and API protection is imperative to fend off attacks that seek to exploit a vulnerability. F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF works in AWS or on-premises to protect your applications and APIs from attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), or vulnerability exploits. BIG-IP Advanced WAF provides a dedicated dashboard to ensure compliance against threats listed in the OWASP Top 10 to monitor and reduce risk.
To protect apps and APIs deployed across clouds and edge sites, you can leverage F5 Distributed Cloud Web App and API Protection (WAAP) to defend against ransomware and other malicious activities. Distributed Cloud WAAP implements behavior-based security controls to differentiate between legitimate users and attackers. It blocks a broad spectrum of risks, including the OWASP Top 10, persistent and coordinated threat campaigns, layer 7 DoS, and more.
F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense blocks bots employed in credential stuffing attacks that are a common ransomware vector. Its real-time protection uses rich telemetry and artificial intelligence to adapt faster than criminals can retool to protect your applications and networks in the cloud, at the edge, or on premises.
Leverage Standards and Best Practices
AWS provides a host of resources and best practices to defend against ransomware attacks, such as implementing strong access controls, regularly patching and updating software, and configuring proper network segmentation. This includes recommendations to regularly scan your AWS infrastructure for vulnerabilities as well as perform security assessments and penetration tests to identify and address any weaknesses. Additional resources include the AWS Security Reference Architecture (AWS SRA), which provides a published set of guidelines for deploying the full complement of AWS security services in a multi-account environment. It can help you design, implement, and manage AWS security services so they align with AWS best practices.
Ensuring you have a solid business continuity and disaster recovery process for your systems, applications, and data is also crucial in defending against ransomware. It’s essential to back up your critical data and apps regularly and ensure that the backups are stored securely and separately so you can recover quickly if needed.
Arm Your Team with Intelligence and Tools
Ransomware is a daunting threat, but providing your team with a solid defense strategy, threat intelligence, and the right security tools and processes can greatly reduce your risk. F5 and AWS provide multi-layer protection and best practices to keep your entire IT environment safe with less complexity.
To learn whether deploying BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator on AWS may be right for you, check out the joint solution overview and the AWS Marketplace listing. To learn more about F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP, reach out via sales@f5.com with questions about the solution.