One Click Away from a Bad Day: Planning and Preparation are Key When Defending Against Ransomware Attacks
Right now, in some medium-sized company somewhere, an employee is innocently reading an email assumed to be completely legitimate. Unfortunately, like billions of other digital scams attempted daily, this message is a phishing email designed to trick people into clicking a link that initiates a type of targeted cyberattack known as ransomware.
Ransomware uses encryption to lock up data on infected computers, then demands payment for its return. Many of these attacks get into systems through phishing emails that lure recipients into clicking a link or opening an attachment disguised as a legitimate file. Now among the most prominent types of malware, ransomware is an avenue for hackers to compromise a network or system and then threaten to damage or shut it down unless they are paid. That urgency is at the heart of this year’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which comes as Comparitech reports that the first half of 2025 saw 3,627 reported ransomware attacks, a 47% increase from the same period in the prior year. These attacks can cripple operations at organizations of all sizes. While any industry can be targeted, the most popular victims include all levels of government, education and research institutions, healthcare, internet service providers, and communication networks. In 2025, ransomware crippled organizations across every sector, from the St. Paul, Minnesota municipal government; to Optima Tax Relief; Minneapolis Public Schools; Collins Aerospace; and DaVita Kidney Care — proof that no industry is off-limits.
A Multi-layered, Holistic Defense Strategy
One response has been signature-based threat detection, in which defenders find a unique identifier within a known threat and use it to recognize it in the future. Many anti-virus programs use that process, cataloging known malware. They may catch certain attacks, but some of the more dangerous malware is morphing more rapidly than programs can catalog it.
“Malware developers have become very proficient at finding ways to evade traditional signature based anti-virus solutions,” said Joe Richard, Associate Director of Program Management for CODEX (Cyber Offense and Defense Experts) at Nightwing. “Keeping anti-virus software up to date is good cyber hygiene, but more comprehensive solutions are needed to keep critical information secure.”
A truly holistic defense strategy goes beyond antivirus software or any single technology. It weaves together people, processes, and technology into a layered architecture that makes it harder for attackers to succeed at any stage of a ransomware attack.
At the employee layer, organizations can build awareness with regular cyber hygiene training, phishing simulations, and insider threat education to reduce the odds of an employee falling for a malicious link.
Process-driven defenses, like strong patch management, disciplined backup practices, and well-rehearsed incident response playbooks ensure that even if an attacker slips through, the damage is contained and recovery is rapid.
On the technology side, modern defenses include endpoint detection and response tools, multi-factor authentication, behavioral monitoring, and Zero Trust access controls that continuously verify the identity of users and devices. Network segmentation and isolation can prevent a single compromised system from infecting an entire enterprise, while behavioral analytics can detect suspicious activity that signature-based systems often miss. Together, these overlapping protections reduce single points of failure and strengthen organizational resilience.
For Nightwing, that multi-layered philosophy is at the heart of its Zero Trust Framework, which integrates software and hardware-based safeguards across the enterprise. By combining proactive detection, real-time monitoring, and mission continuity planning, this approach ensures organizations can not only stop ransomware from spreading but also continue operating even while under attack.
“All it takes is one careless employee clicking on a ransomware-infested phishing email to start losing all your data in a matter of seconds. Sometimes these attacks are highly targeted or in other cases, attackers cast their net wide to capture victims. In some of these costly ransomware cases against a specific individual or organization, we’ve seen sophisticated social engineering and spear-phishing tactics,” Richard said, referring to highly targeted phishing attacks designed to obtain sensitive information from specific people. “But sometimes, it’s simply through a mass email laced with malware intended to prey off people’s curiosity. And that’s dangerous because you can’t control what every single employee happens to click on.”
Prevention, not remediation, is the key for organizations. It only takes seconds for ransomware to start encrypting gigabytes worth of data.
“In some industries, they’re still running legacy systems like Windows XP, which Microsoft no longer supports,” Richard said. “Patching the OS is not an option, so there’s a critical need for solutions that can keep these systems operating in a secure state. Electronic Armor can keep these systems secure by authenticating all data and applications before execution and isolating critical software and data from untrusted applications on the system.”
Nightwing’s Electronic Armor software measures and monitors an operating system’s boot and runtime environment. The software can prevent unauthorized access, copying, modification, reverse engineering, or deletion of critical software, intellectual property, or sensitive data. Electronic Armor can be combined with Nightwing’s full suite of advanced protection solutions to provide a multi-layered defense to rapidly detect and neutralize potential cyber threats at the user, device, system, application, network, and storage layer, and prevent single points of failure.
“Every user, system, process, and application pose a potential cyber threat or vulnerability — regardless of their origin, current location, or access privileges,” said Richard. “Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a reminder of that reality, and our mission is to make sure the organization stays running even while under attack.”