7.6 Million Reasons: The Evolve Bank Breach and the Rising Ransomware Tide

The hits just keep on coming for financial institutions. Evolve Bank & Trust is the next of many to experience a significant cybersecurity incident in 2024. Financial organizations are a prime target, with 65% experiencing attacks in the previous 4 years. These attacks are easy to execute for attackers and, when successful, are always a win. If the organization doesn’t pay, they still make off with data to sell later. On the other hand, if they do pay the ransom, the attackers win twice as much, as they get the ransom to unlock the data and can still sell it later.

As organizations increasingly become targets of these malicious campaigns, understanding and preparing for ransomware threats becomes critical to safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining trust.

Understanding the Financial Data Breach

The Evolve breach is valuable to explore, not just because it was recent, but because the investigation went awry. Evolve was targeted by a LockBit ransomware attack, which initially went unrecognized and was misdiagnosed as a hardware issue. It wasn’t until the LockBit group claimed responsibility and threatened to release data that the true nature of the breach was understood. This attack compromised the personal information of approximately 7.6 million individuals, including names, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and contact information.

Initial Misdiagnosis

One of the biggest challenges in the Evolve Bank & Trust breach was that the initial symptoms of the cyberattack were misinterpreted as hardware issues. This could have stemmed from the initial absence of clear signs of malicious activity, common in sophisticated cyberattacks. Such incidents often begin subtly, with disruptions that mimic hardware or software failures, leading IT teams to look for technical faults rather than security breaches.

Due to the latency in proper identification, the ransomware had time to spread unfettered, increasing the attack’s impact. Without appropriate early detection, the organization could not take mitigating steps, leading to widespread data compromise. Even without early detection, proactive steps to prevent such data loss would have also significantly mitigated this breach.

Response and Mitigation

After realizing that the disruptions at Evolve Bank & Trust were not due to hardware issues but a ransomware attack, the bank took swift action to mitigate the damage. Immediate steps included shutting down affected systems to contain the spread of the ransomware and initiating a comprehensive investigation with the help of cybersecurity experts. In the long term, Evolve implemented enhanced security protocols to fortify its defenses against future attacks. To support customers whose personal information had been compromised, the bank offered credit monitoring and identity protection services, providing some reassurance in the wake of the breach.

Avoiding Disasters

No matter how solid an organization’s incident response is, there is no better path to avoiding an incident like Evolve Bank & Trust than to focus on prevention. Organizations must prioritize early threat detection, implement robust response strategies, and continuously update their security protocols to avoid falling victim to similar ransomware attacks. This takes using a combination of proactive detection, data sanitization, and data protection technologies to prevent becoming a victim.

Preventing Malware

Stopping ransomware takes more than a single solution. Antivirus (AV) is the long-time go-to solution for prevention as it is fast and highly accurate for known threats. However, the problem with AV stems from challenges in identifying new or novel strands of malware. These new or altered strains have a window of opportunity to slip past filters and infect systems.

AV can be combined with Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) to combat this problem. CDR is not detection-based; instead, it deconstructs all files and rebuilds them from only known-safe elements. This eliminates potentially malicious content, removing known and zero-day threats without the need to identify them. It allows the recreation of the file without impacting safe content, format, or functionality, and in the case of the most advanced CDR, preserves necessary macro functionality.

Data Protection Matters

A comprehensive defense against malware takes more than eliminating the threat. It also requires protecting the data. Data Detection and Response (DDR) is designed to safeguard sensitive information and diminish the impacts of data breaches. This technology achieves its goals through real-time monitoring and protective measures that actively prevent unauthorized access and data exfiltration. By continually scanning and reacting to potential threats, DDR ensures that sensitive data remains secure, reducing the potential for significant breaches and the resultant damage.

DDR integrates smoothly with existing security infrastructures, including tools like DSPM, enhancing data protection without necessitating comprehensive system overhauls. This seamless integration is crucial for organizations that must adhere to stringent compliance and privacy regulations.

By bolstering the security posture with DDR, companies protect their sensitive data and align with legal and regulatory standards, thereby avoiding severe penalties and enhancing stakeholder trust.

Votiro DDR Allows You to Focus on Prevention

Votiro’s platform is built on a foundation of preventative data security. It combines DDR with CDR and AV solutions to create a formidable defense against data loss and malware infection. This integrated system identifies and neutralizes known malware through AV and proactively disarms and reconstructs incoming files via CDR, ensuring only safe, clean data enters the network. By addressing known and unknown threats in real-time, Votiro’s solution significantly minimizes the risk of data breaches and malware disruptions, ensuring robust protection for sensitive information.

Votiro’s DDR employs advanced analytics and real-time monitoring to detect potential security breaches, ensuring that only clean, safe data is processed and stored. By integrating with existing security frameworks, Votiro’s DDR secures data and aligns with compliance requirements, effectively safeguarding sensitive information from emerging cyber threats.

Find out for yourself how Votiro can protect your environment. Sign up for a one-on-one demo or try our platform for 30 days. Experience firsthand the comprehensive protection that proactive data defense can offer.