Today’s IT security landscape is increasingly sophisticated and elusive, and many IT administrators see traditional network security defenses becoming less effective in protecting their businesses. A major culprit is malware signatures that are evolving more quickly than security vendors’ abilities to create patches. According to research from Cisco, antivirus vendors have created protection for more than 20 million known viruses, but hackers are estimated to have created more than 100 million — and that number grows each year.

One of the most insidious threats companies face is ransomware, which infiltrates companies’ networks oftentimes through emails containing links/attachments from seemingly legitimate senders (e.g., FedEx, the IRS, UPS). Once the user clicks the infected email link or attachment, the malware begins encrypting files on the user’s machine as well as any additional files the machine has access to via the network. Shortly afterward, users receive pop-up messages on their screens notifying them that their data is being held ransom, and they must pay a fee — typically $700 to $1,000 — to obtain the decryption key.

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