What is Ransomware empowers individuals, small businesses, educators, and community leaders with the knowledge and tools to identify threats, strengthen defenses, and respond with confidence.
increase in ransomware attacks targeting public sector and education organizations in the last two years.
of successful ransomware events start with a phishing email or social engineering tactic against employees.
average downtime for organizations that do not have an incident response plan or tested backups in place.
Ransomware criminals exploit gaps in awareness, human error, and unpatched systems. We make complex cybersecurity principles approachable so you can build a resilient defense strategy without needing a full-time security team.
From understanding how attackers operate to practicing incident response, our modular learning paths and downloadable resources are designed for classrooms, boardrooms, and home offices alike.
Deceptive emails, texts, and voice calls trick users into sharing credentials or running malicious attachments. Spot warning signs like urgent tone, mismatched addresses, and suspicious links.
Attackers brute force weak passwords or exploit vulnerabilities in VPNs, RDP, and remote management tools. Require multi-factor authentication and restrict access to known networks.
Compromised vendors and software updates can be weaponized to deliver ransomware. Review vendor security posture, monitor updates, and limit third-party privileges.
Outdated operating systems, firmware, and security tools are easy targets. Schedule regular updates, automate patch deployment, and remove unsupported assets.
of organizations with immutable backups recovered in less than a week.
of attacks now include data extortion in addition to encryption.
Average time it takes for ransomware to begin encrypting once an attacker has foothold.
increase in attacks against managed service providers and IT consultancies year-over-year.
Isolate affected devices from the network, disable shared drives, and preserve evidence. Activate monitoring to spot lateral movement attempts.
Document affected systems, data sensitivity, and business processes. Engage legal and compliance leads to evaluate reporting obligations.
Remove malicious persistence, reset credentials, and restore clean backups. Validate system integrity before reconnecting to production networks.
Conduct a blameless post-incident review, capture lessons learned, and strengthen controls, user training, and detection engineering.
Understand ransomware anatomy, attacker motivations, and defensive layers. Ideal for students, citizens, and business owners starting their security journey.
Develop governance frameworks, risk assessments, and executive playbooks to guide strategic decision-making during high-pressure events.
Hands-on labs exploring endpoint hardening, SIEM alerts, zero trust segmentation, and backup validation to minimize attacker dwell time.
Lesson plans, slide decks, and classroom simulations that bring ransomware scenarios to life and encourage proactive security habits.
Grab every checklist and template in a single package to share with your team.
Download Complete Toolkit (ZIP)Validate backups, vendor access controls, and staff awareness to keep operations resilient.
Download PDFReinforce clinical downtime plans, on-call rosters, and regulatory escalation triggers.
Download PDFEncourage family security habits like offline backups, automatic updates, and phishing awareness.
Download PDFSummarize impact, actions, and requests for hospital leadership during high-pressure incidents.
Download DOCXFollow fictional organizations as they confront ransomware. Each drill locks progress behind investigations, discussions, and checkpoints so teams cannot skip ahead—they earn the outcome together.
Paying ransom is risky and often discouraged by law enforcement. Even after payment, decryption tools may fail and attackers can still leak stolen data. Focus on prevention, backups, and legal consultation to make an informed decision.
Require multi-factor authentication, limit admin privileges, ensure VPN or zero trust network access, and deliver just-in-time phishing simulations tailored for remote teams.
Reporting obligations vary by region and industry. Engage legal counsel early to understand requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, SEC disclosures, and state-specific breach notification laws.
Test restoration quarterly at a minimum, with critical systems validated monthly. Include verification that backups are isolated, versioned, and encrypted.
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