Ransomware

By the time files start changing, the attacker has already signed in, moved between hosts and copied data out, and each step looked like ordinary work in a different system. Ransomware appeared in 48% of breaches in the 2026 Verizon DBIR, up from 44% the year before.

Attack

CISA defines ransomware as malware that encrypts files and makes the systems that depend on them unusable, followed by a demand for payment. Many groups also copy data out first and threaten to publish it. NIST IR 8374r1 describes the same sequence.

Initial access

Exposed services, stolen credentials, phishing or a third party. A remote access tool is installed so the attacker can return.

Lateral movement

One host becomes many. The attacker signs in elsewhere with the credentials found on the first.

Data theft

Files are copied out over HTTPS, FTP tools or a cloud share. It is silent, and it survives a restore.

Encryption

One process on many hosts, files changing fast. The ransom note follows.

Detection

Every stage is logged somewhere. No single source shows that the login, the new session and the upload belong together, so a defender sees four low-priority alerts, not an attack.

ARRTECH SIEM collects VPN, firewall and mail logs and checks them against threat intelligence. Sequence rules link events across sources, so a sign-in on one server followed by a new process on another is one alert. UEBA flags an account acting unlike its history.

Cyberdroid AI Detection, the AI layer of the ARRTECH Security Suite, baselines every user, host and application against its own history and its neighbors. A server reaching peers it never contacted, or a host beaconing over DNS, is flagged with no rule written for it.

Exfiltration

Backups return the files. They do not return the copy the attacker holds. The control has to sit where data leaves the machine.

ARRTECH DLP blocks remote access tools by process name or hash, inspects HTTP and HTTPS uploads from any application at the kernel level, and controls USB, network shares and outbound mail. Its Protected Process rule keeps the agent running even against an administrator.

Response

Isolating a host or disabling an account is a business decision that has to be made in minutes. An automated response acts on a false positive as fast as on a real attack. A manual one waits for someone to read the alert.

A SIEM alert opens an ARRTECH SOAR incident. The playbook extracts IPs and hashes, checks their reputation, then pauses: a person receives an email with up to five options and decides. SOAR runs the choice and keeps the history.

Record

Afterwards, insurers and regulators ask what happened. A log the defender could have edited proves little.

Every log ARRTECH SIEM stores is hashed, signed, chained to the previous file and timestamped daily. Any source exports with a standalone verifier, and logs are kept for at least two years.

Limits

What the suite does not do against ransomware.

Backups

ARRTECH sells no backup product. Keep offline, encrypted backups and test restoring from them. The products above shorten the attack; they do not undo it.

Endpoints

The ARRTECH DLP agent runs on Windows and controls data, devices and processes. It is not an EDR, it does not roll back encrypted files, and it does not replace an antivirus.

Timing

Cyberdroid AI Detection reads the SIEM export read-only and reports near-hourly. It sees the days of movement before encryption, not the minutes of it, and it never blocks or changes anything.

Evaluation

A proof of value runs beside your existing controls on one week of your own logs, with the success and stop criteria agreed before it begins. You see which stages the correlation rules caught, which decisions reached an approver, and whether the signed record verifies.

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