An action plan when a cyberattack takes down comms

May 17, 2023 – Published on IT Brew

When ransomware actors strike, they often disrupt a company’s email services, phones, internal chat, or other ways of sending messages both urgent and random. The last thing you want is a cyberattack leading to a whole company-wide, “You’re on mute” situation.

An FBI official told a cybersecurity-summit audience in April that IT teams and executives must be prepared with messaging options outside of the usual telecom frequency, aka “out of band.”

Enterprise services like Office 365 can be tied to Active Directory. An attacker with access to AD admin credentials, common in ransomware scenarios, may get a good look inside Office 365 email or internal-chat platforms.

“It’s at that point that you’re probably going to want to assume that most of the communications on the network have been either compromised or they’re not trustworthy. And that’s when you should enact your automated communication plan,” said Drew Schmitt, a managing security consultant at GuidePoint Security.

Read More HERE.