What Is Ransomware, How Does It Work, And How Can You Stay Secure?

What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware is essentially malware with a ransom note. Ransomware is designed to block access to a computer system or files until a ransom - typically a significant sum of money - is paid. Victims are usually unaware that an attack has taken place until they are prompted to pay a significant ransom within a set window of time.

Ransomware can strike any organization at any time and no industry - hospitals and healthcare providers, government agencies, non-profit entities, even schools and educational facilities - is safe from attack.
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Ransomware attacks can have devastating repercussions, including loss of critical data, damage to trust, financial losses, and the loss to brand reputation of having been ensnared by one of these attackers. Scarier still, the number of ransomware attacks is continually rising, with 37% of all businesses and organizations in 2021 being hit by ransomware and a staggering global cost of $20 billion in 2021, which is estimated to reach $265 billion by 2031.

How Constant Edge Stops Ransomware

The message that displayed to users who were infected with the WannaCry ransomware attack.

Constant Edge provides leading protection against ransomware.

Constant Edge provides powerful protection at the gateway to prevent email messages containing any malicious email content from reaching your users. Proofpoint’s powerful antivirus scanning engines and URL sandboxing technology scans email content and attachments in real time to prevent ransomware from entering your network.
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Our solutions use machine learning technologies to scan internal email content. Suspicious emails display a warning banner, users can report email content that doesn’t look right, and admins can send email messages to quarantine, even after they have been delivered.

Constant Edge Ransomware Protection Features

Powerful Inbound Filtering

Prevent any malicious content, including attachments and URLs that could contain ransomware, from entering your email network.

Automatic Remediation

Machine learning algorithms detect malicious content inside the email inbox, automatically removing ransomware when detected.

Real Time URL Scanning

Multi-layered protection against malicious URLs with real time scanning to stop users visiting malicious webpages.

Admin Policies

Admins can configure granular policies such as allow/deny lists, email quarantines, and filtering strength to block incoming ransomware threats.

Attachment Sandboxing

Automated sandboxing of attachments across all inboxes using multiple AV engines to stop malicious documents being delivered.

Emergency Inbox

If your organization is hit by a ransomware attack, users can still reply, read, and send emails with our continuity inbox service.

Mike Waskosky

Road Machinery & Supplies Co.

'I used to get 5 calls a week from our users saying: “I clicked on a link in a phishing email and gave them my password!" Now we have Constant Edge in place, we haven't had a single one of those emails.'

Email security Specialists

Constant Edge Makes Email Security Easy

We take the confusion out of email security. Speak to us find out how we help businesses protect themselves against email threats.