BlackBerry Workplaces ransomware solution with precise recovery capability launched

Canada-based software firm BlackBerry has announced a new platform that allows organisations to quickly recover from cyber attacks. The next-generation BlackBerry Workplaces content collaboration platform helps organisations contain the ransomware damage by freezing the accounts of affected users.

BlackBerry will be demonstrating the new solution at its 2018 Security Summit to be held on September 12 in London and on October 4 in New York.

Despite the best precautions, organisations are still hit with ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks were the most common type of malware in 2017, BlackBerry said in a statement. According to its projections, ransomware attacks will hit organisations every 14 seconds by the end of 2019 affecting $11.5 billion business annually.

Unlike most ransomware recovery solutions that enforce a companywide rollback, the new BlackBerry Workplaces will check user logs to pinpoint exactly what workplaces, folders and files have been infected. This allows selective roll out of impacted files back to pre-attack versions without affecting the uninfected systems. This ability to precisely remove just the infected files helps organizations avoid the loss of work and productivity.

The new ransomware recovery feature will be available in the BlackBerry Workspaces Collaborate and Secure Plus editions at no additional cost.

“Beyond data loss, opportunity costs, and reputational risks, downtime resulting from ransomware attacks can inflict real harm on customers in any industry, including healthcare or public safety, where the consequences of any delay can be catastrophic,” said Billy Ho, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Products, BlackBerry. “Organizations need to have a strong culture of security to minimize the risk of an attack – something that our Cybersecurity Consulting team has been supporting for the last several years. And in a worst-case scenario, it’s critical that organizations also have a layered defense model in place and an enterprise technology stack that is designed with the inevitable breach in mind.”