How to Detect Ransomware: Common Detection Techniques

What is Ransomware Detection?

Ransomware detection is the process of identifying malicious activity that indicates an ongoing or imminent ransomware attack. It involves monitoring systems, networks, and user behaviors for suspicious patterns, from abnormal file encryption to unauthorized privilege escalation.

Unlike traditional antivirus software that flags known malware signatures, modern ransomware detection focuses on behavioral cues, anomaly spotting, and AI-driven analysis to recognize even new, previously unseen variants. The goal is to stop the attack before malware spreads across the environment.

Why Do You Need Early Ransomware Detection?

The earlier you identify any type of cyber-attack, the better your chances of preventing it or at least stopping the attack from spreading. This is especially true for Ransomware, as the damage that can be caused by a ransomware attack can be irreversible.

Even if a victim pays the ransom, there’s no guarantee that the decryption key will be delivered, and if they extracted copies of your data before initiating the attack, you will never know what they will do with those copies.

In short, the faster you can respond to a ransomware attack, the less chance the attacker will have to steal your sensitive data and disrupt your systems.

What Are the Common Signs of a Ransomware Attack?

It takes an estimated forty-three minutes for the average ransomware variant to encrypt 100,000 files. Naturally, different companies will store different numbers of files, and so it is difficult to accurately predict how long it will take for a ransomware attack to fully unfold. However, assuming that companies have the right solutions in place, even a small time window can be enough to stop an attack in its tracks.

Of course, to prevent a ransomware attack from spreading, there are signs that you will need to look out for, which include;

1. A spike in disk activity, as the ransomware script searches for and encrypts the files on your system.
2. Poor system performance, as the script uses up system resources to perform searches and encrypt the files.
3. The creation of new accounts, especially privileged accounts.
4. Suspicious inbound and outbound network traffic, as the ransomware script communicates with the Command & Control (C&C) Server.
5. The installation of unauthorized software, as attackers install various tools, such as Mimikatz, to help them exploit vulnerabilities and carry out other relevant tasks.
6. Security systems are being tampered with in an attempt to thwart monitoring activities.
7. Backups are being tampered with in an attempt to prevent the victim from restoring their files.
8. Ports are being scanned inside your network, thus suggesting that the attackers are trying to move laterally from one system to another.
9. Applications are no longer working, as the files they depend on are being encrypted.

Common Challenges in Ransomware Detection

One of the reasons why ransomware attacks are successful is because they can penetrate your network via a large number of end-points, and then execute in a covert manner. Below are the most common challenges associated with ransomware detection.

Employees are the weakest link

As with most forms of malware, ransomware attacks typically arrive via some form of social engineering technique, and in most cases, organizations only become aware of the attack once all data has been encrypted. The problem with detecting social engineering attacks is that they are inherently deceitful and tend to prey on unsuspecting victims.

Ransomware attacks spread very quickly

Once the targeted organization has been infected, the ransomware script will try to propagate to as many different systems as possible, thus making it very difficult to contain.

Some strains don’t leave a trace

Over the last five years we’ve seen a proliferation of strains known as “file-less ransomware”, which are even harder to detect than other strains as they do not install any files on the victim’s device. File-less ransomware attacks usually take advantage of Microsoft Windows PowerShell, which gives adversaries access to pretty much everything and anything in a Windows environment.

Common Ransomware Detection Techniques

Most companies will already utilize software solutions such as anti-virus software, SPAM filters, and sandboxes. However, these days, many strains of ransomware can evade such solutions. While there may not be a ‘magic bullet’ when it comes to detecting and preventing ransomware attacks, there are some best practices that organizations should adhere to, which include:

1. Signature-based detection: A traditional method of matching files against known ransomware signatures. Effective for older strains but less useful against new or modified variants.
2. Behavior-based detection: It focuses on identifying unusual behaviors like rapid file encryption, unusual process creation, or registry changes. Often powered by EDR (Endpoint Detection & Response) tools.
3. Anomaly detection: It uses machine learning and baselines of “normal” network and user activity. Flags deviations such as unexpected logins, data exfiltration, or file access patterns.
4. Honeypots and decoy files: It deploys fake files or systems that have no business purpose. If ransomware attempts to encrypt them, the system triggers alerts immediately.
5. File integrity monitoring (FIM): It tracks changes to critical files and folders. Abnormal modifications can signal malicious encryption.
6. Network traffic analysis: It monitors outbound connections for suspicious communications with command-and-control servers often used in ransomware campaigns.
7. User behavior analytics (UBA): It identifies compromised accounts by flagging unusual user actions, such as accessing sensitive files at odd hours or from unusual locations.
8. Threat intelligence integration: It leverages global feeds of known ransomware indicators of compromise (IOCs) to enhance detection accuracy.

How Lepide Helps in Ransomware Detection

The Lepide Data Security Platform can help to secure your accounts and data – before, during, and after a ransomware attack. To start with, you need to ensure that regular users only have access to the data they need to perform their role.

If access controls are assigned responsibly, were an employee to fall victim to a phishing attack and install the ransomware application, it would only be able to encrypt a relatively small number of files.

The Lepide Data Security Platform will help you discover and classify your critical assets, thus making it easier to assign the appropriate access controls. It will also help you identify which regular users have access to sensitive data.

Once an attack has been initiated, Lepide can help you prevent the attack from spreading by automating a response to events that match a pre-defined threshold condition, such as when an unusually large number of files are being copied to an external server, or encrypted within a given time-frame.

As mentioned above, a custom script can be executed to perform a number of operations that can help to stop the attack in its tracks. It’s also a good idea to use a real-time auditing solution to detect and respond to changes made to your backups (assuming they are stored on the same system), as changes to backups may suggest that an attacker is trying to delete or encrypt them.

You will also need to keep track of any newly created accounts, as attackers often try to use new accounts in order to operate in a stealthy manner.

Following a ransomware attack, you will need to carry out a forensic analysis of the events that took place prior to the attack, to ensure that you are able to prevent the attack from reoccurring and to ensure that the attacker no longer has access to your network.

In addition to closely monitoring privileged accounts, the Lepide Data Security Platform will provide a summary of all events that took place prior to the incident, via a single dashboard, with various options for sorting and searching.

If you’d like to see how the Lepide Data Security Platform can help you detect ransomware attacks, schedule a demo with one of our engineers.