Blackberry’s new ransomware recovery solution may ensure entities never have to pay hackers

• The new ransomware recovery solution was launched as part of the next-gen Blackberry Workspaces.
• The new feature is designed to freeze accounts and/or PCs infected by ransomware, limiting the scale of attack.

Ransomware has become a pervasive cyberthreat affecting numerous organizations across several industries. However, Blackberry claims that its new ransomware recovery solution feature can ensure that organizations are never again compelled to pay cybercriminals ransom to recover stolen data.

Blackberry will unveil its new ransomware recovery solution at this week’s Black Hat USA. The feature will be made available as part of the Blackberry Workspaces and Secure Plus editions, free of cost.

Containing the damage

Blackberry's new ransomware recovery solution is designed to contain the damage caused by ransomware attacks. It does this by freezing accounts and/or PCs infected by ransomware, thereby limiting the scale of an attack. Using Blackberry Workspaces, administrators can pinpoint which workstations, folders and files were impacted by the attack and selectively roll impacted files back to pre-attack versions.

In essence, Blackberry’s new feature allows administrators to specifically remove the infected files, thereby ensuring that organizations don’t suffer unnecessary loss of work that is commonly associated with system-wide recovery mechanisms.

"Beyond data loss, opportunity costs, and reputation 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," Billy Ho, executive VP of enterprise products at BlackBerry, said in a statement.

Minimizing impact

Blackberry claims that its new ransomware solution can manage backups going back to an infinite amount of time. The new feature also allows administrators to work at an individual file-level while wiping malware, to ensure that the data on unaffected systems remain safe.

"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."

Blackberry’s new feature will work on Windows PCs, Macs, Android and iOS devices, as well as the few loyalists still using the BlackBerry 10 mobile OS.