Ransomware Response Best Practices 2025

The Golden Hour: First 60 Minutes

What you do in the first hour after detecting ransomware determines whether you'll contain the attack or watch it spread across your entire network. Every minute counts.

The Ransom Payment Decision Framework

Should you pay the ransom? This is one of the most difficult decisions an organization faces during a ransomware attack. Here's a framework to guide your decision-making process.

Recovery & Restoration Best Practices

Once you've contained the ransomware, the hard work of recovery begins. Follow these four phases to safely restore operations without reinfecting your environment.

Prevention is Better Than Response

The best ransomware response is the one you never have to execute. Implement these preventive measures to dramatically reduce your risk of successful ransomware attacks.

Key Prevention Strategies

• Immutable Backups: Use backup solutions that prevent deletion or modification for a set retention period
• Network Segmentation: Isolate critical systems to limit lateral movement during attacks
• Email Security: Deploy advanced email filtering to block phishing attempts (primary ransomware delivery method)
• Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR): Modern EDR can detect and block ransomware behavior before encryption begins
• Privileged Access Management: Limit and monitor admin credentials that attackers use to spread ransomware
• Regular Patching: Most ransomware exploits known vulnerabilities that have available patches