Why Your Cybersecurity Defenses are Days Behind
We’ve been telling ourselves that detection times are improving, but ransomware groups are proving otherwise. Data from Google Mandiant’s latest M-Trends report has certainly busted some common security myths.
Three Security Myths That Are Costing You
Myth #1: We have time to catch them.
We don’t.
For ransomware cases that end with encryption, the median time from compromise to detonation is just five days. That’s how long it takes for an attacker to break in, steal credentials, exfiltrate data, and pull the trigger. Most of our defenses are still tuned for the older, slower model of intrusion.
Myth #2: File system scanners will save us.
They won’t.
By the time the data security team or a scanning tool detects a bunch of .lockbit file or flags an alert about increased entropy of files in a backup, the damage is done. Encryption is the final act, not the opening scene.
Scanners that look for scrambled files are forensic tools, not preventive ones. It’s like a smoke alarm that only sounds after the house has burned down.
The real fight is inside the dwell time. The goal is to spot the operator, those quiet hands moving through your network during those five days.
This means shifting detection from signatures to behavior: lateral movement, credential dumping, privilege escalation, reconnaissance. Honeypots and deception assets are tripwires for the bad guys. When someone touches a fake admin credential or probes a decoy share, you’ve caught a human adversary in motion. That’s your window to win.
Myth #3: Prevention is everything.
Not anymore.
Even the best-prepared networks experience breaches. The five-day ransomware window makes resilience as critical as detection. Immutable, air gapped, and regularly tested replicas of your data are your survival gear.
From Aftermath to Action: Proactive Ransomware Detection for Modern Enterprises
This is the new reality: You’re in a five-day race, and your scanners are watching the wrong finish line.
Stop tuning your alerts for the explosion. Start watching for the silent footsteps.
