Ransomware attacks on organisations are among the most serious threats today. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), ransomware remains the most disruptive cybercrime, affecting businesses of all sizes across every sector.
Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the victim's personal data until a ransom is paid. Cryptocurrencies that are difficult to trace, such as Bitcoin, are commonly used for ransoms, making it difficult to trace the payment and identify attackers. Ransomware can be devastating to organisations. Victims often pay to recover their files, but there is no guarantee that they will recover their files if they do.
Building a strong ransomware resilience program isn’t just about preventing attacks—it's about ensuring your organisation can respond quickly, minimise downtime, and recover operations with minimal disruption. The following strategies can establish a strong ransomware resilience program.
Ransomware attacks in Australia have surged by 52% in 2024 (ACSC Annual Cyber Threat Report), with SMEs losing an average of $250,000 per attack. New regulations under the Privacy Act 2025 now mandate ransomware reporting within 24 hours, making resilience programs essential for compliance. This guide provides a structured approach to building your program, incorporating ACSC's Essential Eight and latest threat intelligence.
(Australian Cyber Security Centre [ACSC], 2024)
Building a robust ransomware resilience program is critical to modern cybersecurity strategy. This article outlines the essential steps to creating an effective program that not only prevents attacks but also ensures rapid recovery when defences are breached.
A dedicated, cross-functional team is the foundation of any successful ransomware resilience program. This team should include representatives from:
• IT and Security: To implement and manage technical controls
• Legal: To ensure compliance with regulations and handle breach notifications
• Management: To provide strategic direction and resource allocation
• Operations: To maintain business continuity during incidents
A siloed approach to ransomware defence often leads to gaps in protection. By involving stakeholders from across the organisation, you ensure that all aspects of prevention, detection, and response are covered.
When it comes to protecting your organisation against ransomware, not all data and systems hold the same value. Some assets, if compromised or lost, could completely halt operations, damage your reputation, or lead to regulatory penalties — while others might be less critical to day-to-day functioning.
The first step is to conduct a comprehensive inventory of all digital and physical assets across the organisation. This process should involve:
• Customer Data: Including personally identifiable information (PII), payment information, medical records (if in healthcare), and other sensitive client details. Loss of this data could result in mandatory breach reporting under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and lead to heavy penalties from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
• Intellectual Property: This includes trade secrets, proprietary research, source code, design blueprints, and patents. Theft or encryption of IP could lead to long-term competitive disadvantages, especially for industries like biotech, education, or manufacturing.
• Operational Systems: Critical systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), manufacturing controls, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and supply chain logistics platforms must be prioritised. A ransomware attack on these could cause business-wide disruption, financial loss, and even physical safety risks depending on the sector.
Once identified, each asset should be classified based on its criticality to operations, legal obligations, and reputational impact. Many organisations use a risk matrix to classify assets into categories such as "critical," "important," and "non-essential," allowing security controls to be tailored accordingly. According to the ACSC's Cyber Threat Report 2023, organisations that map and prioritise their critical assets are 40% faster at detecting and containing ransomware incidents compared to those who don’t. Without this prioritisation, organisations risk spreading themselves too thin and leaving their most valuable information and systems vulnerable to ransomware attacks.
To build real ransomware resilience, you must first understand your current security posture. A comprehensive security assessment helps uncover gaps before attackers can exploit them. Key activities include:
• Identifying Existing Vulnerabilities: Run scans and tests to find weak points like outdated systems, poor patch management, and misconfigurations.
• Evaluating Security Controls: Review the effectiveness of existing defences such as firewalls, antivirus, backups, and MFA.
• Benchmarking Against Standards: Compare your security practices to frameworks like NIST CSF, ISO 27001, or Australia’s Essential Eight to measure maturity.
In 2023, the ACSC reported that 62% of ransomware incidents involved known but unpatched vulnerabilities.
Without clear visibility, hidden vulnerabilities expose the organisation to ransomware threats. Regular assessments ensure weaknesses are fixed before they are exploited.
A strong ransomware resilience program needs clear, measurable goals to stay focused and track success over time. Key objectives might include:
• Reducing Attack Surface: Minimise exposed vulnerabilities by 50% within six months through patching, hardening, and configuration reviews.
• Improving Backup Reliability: Achieve 99.9% backup success rates to guarantee fast, reliable data recovery.
• Enhancing Staff Training: Train all employees on ransomware prevention and phishing awareness to reduce human risk.
Clearly define the scope too, such as which business units, systems, and data the program will cover to avoid confusion later.
According to the ACSC’s Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents, measurable goals help organisations improve their security posture up to 45% faster.
Well-defined objectives keep the program targeted, measurable, and aligned with business priorities. Without them, efforts can become scattered and difficult to evaluate.
A strong ransomware resilience program begins with clearly defined, documented policies that guide how security is maintained across the organisation. These policies should cover four critical areas:
• Prevention: Outline practices like regular patch management, hardening of systems, and securing email communications to prevent threats from entering.
• Detection: Define how threats will be identified early, including continuous SIEM monitoring, anomaly detection, and setting thresholds for alerts.
• Response: Detail the steps the team must take when a ransomware attack is detected—such as isolating affected systems, notifying stakeholders, and eradicating threats.
• Recovery: Describe processes for restoring operations, including verifying backups and rebuilding affected systems.
Formalised policies drive consistent, efficient actions during routine operations and crises, ensuring the entire organisation moves in a coordinated, secure manner.
Many ransomware attacks succeed because of poor system configurations or overly broad access privileges. Key actions organisations must take:
• Apply the Principle of Least Privilege: Grant users the minimum level of access needed to perform their roles, reducing the impact of compromised accounts.
• Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Add a strong second layer of defence, making stolen credentials much less useful to attackers.
• Disable Unnecessary Services and Ports: Every open service is a potential vulnerability. Shut down what is not necessary.
• Implement Network Segmentation: Divide your network into zones, so if one segment is compromised, the attacker cannot easily move laterally across your environment.
Hardening systems and tightly controlling access significantly reduces the pathways attackers can exploit, making it much harder for ransomware to spread.
Technology plays a critical role in detecting and mitigating ransomware threats, but only if deployed correctly. Critical tools include:
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Monitors endpoints for signs of compromise and responds rapidly to threats.
• Email Filtering and Anti-Phishing Tools: Screens incoming communications to block phishing attempts before they reach users.
• Network Traffic Analysis Solutions: Detects unusual traffic patterns that could signal a ransomware infection or data exfiltration.
• Vulnerability Management Platforms: Helps prioritize and patch known vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Configuration is just as important as deployment — alerts must be fine-tuned to avoid noise and ensure critical issues are seen and acted upon quickly. Without proper tools, organisations lack the visibility and response capability needed to stop ransomware early in its lifecycle.
A ransomware resilience strategy is incomplete without robust, resilient backups that are regularly tested. Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule:
• 3 copies of your data: The original plus two backups.
• 2 different media types: For example, disk and cloud storage.
• 1 copy kept offline: Completely disconnected from the network to protect against ransomware encryption.
Beyond creating backups, organisations must test recovery procedures regularly to ensure they can restore data quickly under pressure. Reliable, offline backups allow organisations to recover without paying ransom demands, effectively rendering many attacks powerless.
Tip: Store at least one backup copy in a location inaccessible to your primary network.
When ransomware strikes, panic is the enemy. A well-rehearsed incident response plan ensures that teams know exactly what to do. The plan should include:
• Roles and Responsibilities: Identify the incident commander, communication leads, technical responders, and legal contacts.
• Communication Protocols: Define how to escalate issues internally and notify external parties (e.g., regulators, customers).
• Containment Procedures: Describe how to isolate infected systems quickly.
• Recovery Steps: Provide clear guidance on restoring operations from backups.
• Post-Incident Review: Learn from the attack and update procedures to improve future resilience.
Preparation ensures a faster, more effective response, limiting downtime, financial loss, and reputational damage.
Security threats and vulnerabilities are constantly evolving. To stay ahead, organisations must regularly assess their security posture. Recommended practices are:
• Vulnerability Scans (Weekly/Monthly): Use automated tools to find and address known vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them.
• Penetration Tests (Annually): Engage ethical hackers to simulate real-world attacks and uncover deeper, harder-to-spot flaws.
• SOC Efficiency Testing Test not just systems, but people and processes by simulating a full-scope attack with/ without prior notification to SOC providers.
Continuous testing helps identify weaknesses early and validates whether existing controls are working as intended.
Technology can block many attacks, but employees remain the most targeted and vulnerable point. Regular security awareness training empowers users to become part of the defence. Training should focus on:
• Phishing Recognition: Helping staff identify suspicious emails, links, and attachments.
• Safe Browsing Habits: Encouraging the use of secure websites and careful handling of downloads.
• Incident Reporting Procedures: Teaching employees when and how to report suspicious activities immediately.
Training must be ongoing, not a one-time exercise, with simulated phishing tests to reinforce learning. An alert and educated workforce can prevent attacks before they escalate, often serving as the first and best line of defence.
Change management is a vital process to ensure that updates or modifications to your systems don’t introduce unintended vulnerabilities.
Key Actions:
• Track and document changes: Every system update, patch, and configuration modification should be carefully logged. This ensures accountability and visibility over any alterations made in your environment.
• Approve updates: Before making any changes, require formal approval from relevant stakeholders to confirm that security and compliance requirements are met. This helps to prevent any unauthorized changes that might weaken security.
• Monitor changes: Continuously review changes after they are implemented to confirm that no new vulnerabilities were introduced. Regular audits can help catch errors or omissions early.
A structured change management process ensures that updates are implemented securely and helps prevent security gaps. Without this process, unmonitored changes could expose the organization to new vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.
A Recovery Point Objective (RPO) defines the maximum amount of data that can be lost during an incident, helping to set realistic expectations for recovery times.
Key Actions:
• Define the maximum acceptable data loss: Determine the amount of data your organization can afford to lose during a disaster. For example, an RPO of 4 hours means that in the event of an attack, you must be able to recover all data from the last 4 hours.
• Align with backup strategies: Once the RPO is established, set backup schedules and recovery procedures to ensure that data is regularly backed up and can be restored to the agreed point of recovery.
• Test recovery procedures: Regularly test your recovery processes to ensure they meet the RPO, and that data can be restored quickly without significant loss.
An RPO ensures that recovery processes align with business needs, ensuring minimal disruption and data loss. It helps prioritize backup strategies and outlines the maximum acceptable downtime, making recovery more efficient and predictable.
Ransomware tactics evolve rapidly. What works today may not be effective tomorrow, making continuous improvement essential. Organisations should implement:
• Continuous Security Monitoring: Real-time visibility into network activity, alerting on suspicious behaviour immediately.
• Quarterly Program Reviews: Regular assessments of security strategies, updating them based on the latest intelligence and incidents.
• Annual Framework Updates: Refresh security policies and align with evolving best practices such as updates to NIST, ISO, or local regulations.
Security resilience is a cycle — detect, respond, learn, adapt — not a static goal. Maintaining resilience means staying one step ahead, adapting faster than the threats can evolve.
Building a ransomware resilience program is not just a defensive measure, it’s a strategic investment in the long-term health and stability of your organization. While developing resilience requires time, planning, and consistent effort, the payoff is significant: reduced risk of catastrophic attacks, faster recovery, and stronger trust with clients, regulators, and stakeholders.
By following these structured steps from identifying critical assets and strengthening defences, to continuous monitoring and user education organisations can create an environment where ransomware is far less likely to succeed.
Ransomware resilience is not a one-time project, it’s a living, evolving process that must be regularly reviewed and improved to meet the ever-changing threat landscape.
Stay ahead of ransomware threats by developing a ransomware response program. Spartans security can help building an effective ransomware handling process making an organisation ransomware resilient.
