How to Protect Against Ransomware

KnowBe4 is “best of breed,” and we recommend subscribing to their Platinum Tier. (Note: My firm was able to negotiate a great discount with them for churches and ministries. Any church or ministry that contacts KnowBe4 at 855.566.9234 or via sales@knowbe4.com and says MBS, Inc. referred it will receive a 55% discount. MBS does not profit from this or any other transaction for a solution we recommend.)

• Malware threats are everywhere. Websites, emails, text messages… and wisdom suggests it’s best to protect with the best tools possible. We recently moved our anti-malware spec to SentinelOne. Instead of relying solely on malware signatures (database of known threats), it uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to protect from malware agents— even those that are too new to be in malware signature databases.

Through an arrangement with our preferred solution distributor, pax8, and because my firm (MBS) isn’t allowed in its by-laws to make money on hardware and software it recommends, Christian churches and ministries are able to get SentinelOne Control for about $3/computer/month! There are a couple of caveats:

1. To get SentinelOne Control for that low price, you need to setup a pax8 account via the form at mbsinc.com. Doing so is not restricted to MBS clients! Any Christian church or ministry can do this!
2. SentinelOne Control is not a simple installation. You may have an IT department who can do it, or an IT vendor who can. If not, MBS is available to help at its normal hourly rate. To get help from MBS, simply email support@mbsinc.com.

• If ransomware somehow gets through your defensive lines of training and protection, your best last-line-of-defense is having a good backup strategy. Whether onsite or online, being able to restore your data and systems to a moment in time before the ransomware hit and began encrypting files is the shortest and least expensive path to restored ministry.

Our favorite backup solution is Veeam. It is fast, capable, and reliable. So much so that when we launched our online backup service, we chose to base it on Veeam’s solution!

Ransomware is scary, but it can be well-fought and even overcome with these three strategies in place.

Nick Nicholaou is author of Church IT: Using Information Technology for the Mission of The Church and is president of MBS, an IT consulting firm specializing in church and ministry computer networks, VoIP, and private cloud hosted services. You can reach Nick at nick@mbsinc.com.