Skip to Content
Ransomware Revealed: A Beginner’s Guide to Protecting and Recovering from Ransomware Attacks
book

Ransomware Revealed: A Beginner’s Guide to Protecting and Recovering from Ransomware Attacks

by Nihad A. Hassan
November 2019
Beginner
229 pages
5h 10m
English
Apress

Overview

Know how to mitigate and handle ransomware attacks via the essential cybersecurity training in this book so you can stop attacks before they happen. Learn the types of ransomware, distribution methods, internal structure, families (variants), defense strategies, recovery methods, and legal issues related to reporting ransomware incidents to authorities and other affected parties. This book also teaches you how to develop a ransomware incident response plan to minimize ransomware damage and recover normal operations quickly.

Ransomware is a category of malware that can encrypt your computer and mobile device files until you pay a ransom to unlock them. Ransomware attacks are considered the most prevalent cybersecurity threats today—the number of new ransomware variants has grown 30-fold since 2015 and they currently account for roughly 40% of all spam messages. Attacks have increased in occurrence from one every 40 seconds to one every 14 seconds. Government and private corporations are targets. Despite the security controls set by organizations to protect their digital assets, ransomware is still dominating the world of security and will continue to do so in the future.

Ransomware Revealeddiscusses the steps to follow if a ransomware infection occurs, such as how to pay the ransom through anonymous payment methods, perform a backup and restore your affected files, and search online to find a decryption tool to unlock (decrypt) your files for free. Mitigation steps are discussed in depth for both endpoint devices and network systems.


What You Will Learn

  • Be aware of how ransomware infects your system
  • Comprehend ransomware components in simple terms
  • Recognize the different types of ransomware families
  • Identify the attack vectors employed by ransomware to infect computer systems
  • Know how to prevent ransomware attacks from successfully comprising your system and network (i.e., mitigation strategies)
  • Know what to do if a successful ransomware infection takes place
  • Understand how to pay the ransom as well as the pros and cons of paying
  • Set up a ransomware response plan to recover from such attacks


Who This Book Is For

Those who do not specialize in the cybersecurity field (but have adequate IT skills) and want to fully understand the anatomy of ransomware threats. Although most of the book's content will be understood by ordinary computer users, it will also prove useful for experienced IT users aiming to understand the ins and outs of ransomware threats without diving deep into the technical jargon of the internal structure of ransomware.
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

The Ransomware Threat Landscape

The Ransomware Threat Landscape

Alan Calder
Three Essentials for Agentic AI Security

Three Essentials for Agentic AI Security

Paolo Dal Cin, Daniel Kendzior, Yusof Seedat, Renato Marinho
Cybersecurity - Attack and Defense Strategies

Cybersecurity - Attack and Defense Strategies

Yuri Diogenes, Dr. Erdal Ozkaya

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781484242551Purchase LinkPublisher Website