As cybersecurity threats continue to evolve and increase, organizations face both technical and reputational challenges. Monitoring emerging and growing trends, like ransomware, can help companies avoid trouble spots. 

FGH’s Global Managing Partner Paul Holmes and Managing Director Mike Dolan recently spoke with Manny Jean-Georges and Brice Daniels of Mandiant Consulting, a leading provider of incident response, strategic readiness, technical assurance and security training services. 

These were their takeaways about the state of cybersecurity threats:

• Organizations that can react quickly will handle intrusions best. They can recognize the signs of an intrusion. The best positioned will be prepared to engage and respond by having retainers in place with a security or incident response firm, or will have had crisis simulation experience through a prior tabletop exercise.

• Companies that can quickly understand what systems are impacted will fare better under attack. Organizations that don’t have a good understanding of what their systems are, where those systems are located on the network and where data is stored will take longer to respond and potentially suffer more damage. 

• Attackers often don’t care who they attack if they think they will get paid. Some actors will continue to target organizations within critical industries such as defense and tech, but no company is fully exempt from cyber attacks. 

• Ransomware is not going away. As security firms raise the bar to protect clients, attackers are going to continue to look for the next lowest-hanging fruit. 

Read the full Q&A here.