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Ransomware : Your Feared IT Nightmare
Ransomware has become a too-frequent cyberplague that poses an existential threat for organizations poorly prepared for an assault. Versions of crypto-ransomware like the Dharma, CryptoWall, Locky, NotPetya and MongoLock cryptoworms have been running rampant for a long time and still inflict damage. Modern versions of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Snatch or Nephilim, along with more as yet unnamed malware, not only do encryption of on-line information but also infect many configured system protection mechanisms. Data synched to cloud environments can also be held hostage. In a poorly designed system, it can make any restore operations hopeless and effectively sets the entire system back to zero.

Restoring applications and information after a ransomware attack becomes a race against the clock as the targeted organization tries its best to contain, remove the crypto-ransomware, and resume enterprise-critical activity. Since crypto-ransomware needs time to spread, penetrations are often launched on weekends, when successful penetrations are likely to take longer to notice. This multiplies the difficulty of quickly mobilizing and orchestrating an experienced response team.

Progent makes available a range of services for protecting organizations from crypto-ransomware events. Among these are staff training to help recognize and avoid phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, in addition to setup and configuration of modern security appliances with machine learning technology from SentinelOne to detect and extinguish new threats rapidly. Progent also can provide the services of seasoned ransomware recovery professionals with the talent and perseverance to restore a breached network as soon as possible.

Progent's Crypto-Ransomware Restoration Support Services
Soon after a ransomware invasion, even paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that distant criminals will return the keys to decrypt any or all of your data. Kaspersky Labs determined that 17% of ransomware victims never restored their files even after having sent off the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The risk is also very costly. Ryuk ransoms are commonly several hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom can reach millions of dollars. The other path is to re-install the critical components of your IT environment. Without access to essential data backups, this calls for a wide range of skill sets, top notch team management, and the ability to work 24x7 until the recovery project is completed.

For decades, Progent has provided certified expert IT services for businesses across the US and has earned Microsoft's Gold Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's group of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes professionals who have attained advanced certifications in foundation technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's security experts have earned internationally-recognized certifications including CISM, CISSP, CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Visit Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has experience in financial management and ERP applications. This breadth of expertise affords Progent the capability to rapidly identify important systems and consolidate the remaining parts of your IT environment following a ransomware penetration and configure them into an operational network.

Progent's recovery group utilizes powerful project management applications to coordinate the complex recovery process. Progent understands the importance of acting quickly and in unison with a client's management and IT resources to assign priority to tasks and to put essential services back online as fast as humanly possible.

Client Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Incident Recovery
A business contacted Progent after their company was penetrated by the Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been launched by Northern Korean state sponsored criminal gangs, possibly adopting technology exposed from America's National Security Agency. Ryuk attacks specific companies with little room for disruption and is one of the most lucrative iterations of ransomware malware. High publicized organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based information warehousing and cloud computing business, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a single-location manufacturing company headquartered in the Chicago metro area with about 500 staff members. The Ryuk event had frozen all essential operations and manufacturing capabilities. Most of the client's system backups had been directly accessible at the time of the intrusion and were encrypted. The client was actively seeking loans for paying the ransom (in excess of $200K) and hoping for the best, but in the end made the decision to use Progent.

Progent worked together with the customer to rapidly identify and assign priority to the key elements that needed to be addressed in order to continue departmental operations:

• Microsoft Active Directory
• Email
• Financials/MRP

Within 2 days, Progent was able to re-build Active Directory services to its pre-attack state. Progent then accomplished rebuilding and hard drive recovery on the most important systems. All Exchange data and configuration information were intact, which facilitated the restore of Exchange. Progent was able to collect intact OST data files (Microsoft Outlook Off-Line Data Files) on staff workstations and laptops to recover email messages. A recent offline backup of the client's accounting/MRP systems made it possible to recover these required applications back available to users. Although a large amount of work needed to be completed to recover fully from the Ryuk attack, the most important services were returned to operations rapidly:

Over the following month important milestones in the recovery process were achieved through close cooperation between Progent team members and the customer:

• In-house web applications were returned to operation with no loss of data.
• The MailStore Server exceeding four million historical emails was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoicing/Accounts Payable/AR/Inventory Control capabilities were 100% restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was brought online.
• Most of the desktop computers were functioning as before the incident.

Conclusion
A probable business-ending disaster was averted with results-oriented professionals, a wide array of knowledge, and close teamwork. Although upon completion of forensics the ransomware virus penetration described here could have been identified and blocked with modern security solutions and ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, team training, and appropriate security procedures for backup and applying software patches, the reality is that government-sponsored cyber criminals from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and represent an ongoing threat. If you do fall victim to a ransomware virus, remember that Progent's roster of experts has a proven track record in crypto-ransomware virus blocking, remediation, and data recovery.

To review or download a PDF version of this case study, click:
Progent's Ryuk Incident Recovery Case Study Datasheet. (PDF - 282 KB)

Additional Crypto-Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent can provide businesses in Arlington a range of online monitoring and security assessment services to help you to minimize the threat from crypto-ransomware. These services include next-generation AI capability to detect new variants of crypto-ransomware that are able to get past traditional signature-based anti-virus solutions.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop remote monitoring service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology to keep your IT system running efficiently by checking the state of vital computers that power your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch uncovers a problem, an alarm is transmitted immediately to your specified IT management staff and your assigned Progent consultant so any potential issues can be addressed before they have a chance to disrupt productivity. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a centralized, cloud-based solution for monitoring and managing your network, server, and desktop devices by offering an environment for streamlining common tedious tasks. These include health checking, update management, automated repairs, endpoint setup, backup and recovery, anti-virus defense, secure remote access, built-in and custom scripts, resource inventory, endpoint profile reporting, and troubleshooting assistance. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM spots a serious issue, it sends an alert to your designated IT management personnel and your assigned Progent technical consultant so that emerging problems can be taken care of before they impact productivity. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop monitoring services.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Remote Monitoring and Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for small and mid-sized businesses to map, monitor, enhance and troubleshoot their networking hardware like routers, firewalls, and access points plus servers, endpoints and other networked devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, WAN Watch makes sure that network maps are kept updated, captures and manages the configuration of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and sends alerts when problems are discovered. By automating complex network management activities, WAN Watch can cut hours off common tasks such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, finding appliances that require important software patches, or identifying the cause of performance problems. Find out more details about ProSight WAN Watch infrastructure management services.

• ProSight Reporting: In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Applications
  ProSight Reporting is a growing line of real-time and in-depth management reporting plug-ins created to work with the leading ticketing and network monitoring programs such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and features color coding to surface and contextualize critical issues like inconsistent support follow-through or machines with out-of-date AVs. By identifying ticketing or network health problems concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting improves productivity, lowers management overhead, and saves money. For more information, see ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with advanced backup technology providers to produce ProSight Data Protection Services, a selection of subscription-based offerings that provide backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS services manage and track your backup processes and allow transparent backup and fast restoration of vital files/folders, applications, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets your business protect against data loss resulting from hardware breakdown, natural calamities, fire, cyber attacks like ransomware, user mistakes, malicious employees, or application bugs. Managed backup services available in the ProSight DPS product line include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to identify which of these managed backup services are most appropriate for your network.

• ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam filtering and email encryption service that uses the infrastructure of leading data security companies to deliver centralized control and comprehensive protection for your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid structure of Email Guard managed service integrates cloud-based filtering with a local gateway appliance to offer advanced defense against spam, viruses, Denial of Service Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-borne threats. The cloud filter serves as a preliminary barricade and blocks the vast majority of threats from making it to your network firewall. This reduces your vulnerability to inbound threats and conserves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway device adds a further layer of analysis for inbound email. For outbound email, the onsite gateway offers AV and anti-spam filtering, DLP, and email encryption. The on-premises security gateway can also help Exchange Server to track and protect internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more information, see Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Remediation, and Secure Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo MFA managed services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity verification with iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, when you sign into a secured online account and give your password you are asked to verify who you are on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be utilized as this added means of authentication such as a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several verification devices. For more information about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Help Center: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Call Desk services enable your information technology team to offload Help Desk services to Progent or divide activity for Service Desk support seamlessly between your internal support resources and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service provides a smooth extension of your core IT support staff. Client interaction with the Service Desk, provision of support, escalation, trouble ticket generation and updates, performance metrics, and maintenance of the support database are consistent whether issues are resolved by your in-house support resources, by Progent, or by a combination. Read more about Progent's outsourced/shared Service Center services.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Detection and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that incorporates next generation behavior-based analysis tools to defend endpoints as well as physical and virtual servers against new malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which easily escape legacy signature-matching anti-virus products. Progent Active Security Monitoring services protect local and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to automate the complete threat lifecycle including filtering, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Key features include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and automatic system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Read more about Progent's ransomware defense and cleanup services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  ProSight IT Asset Management service is an IT infrastructure documentation management service that makes it easy to capture, maintain, retrieve and protect information about your IT infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can instantly find passwords or serial numbers and be warned automatically about impending expirations of SSLs or domains. By cleaning up and organizing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can save as much as half of time spent searching for critical information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a common location for storing and sharing all documents required for managing your business network like standard operating procedures (SOPs) and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and relating IT information. Whether you're making enhancements, doing regular maintenance, or reacting to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the data you need the instant you need it. Read more about ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent's Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's managed services for patch management provide organizations of any size a flexible and cost-effective alternative for assessing, testing, scheduling, applying, and documenting software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information network. In addition to optimizing the security and functionality of your IT network, Progent's software/firmware update management services free up time for your in-house IT team to focus on line-of-business projects and tasks that derive the highest business value from your information network. Read more about Progent's software/firmware update management services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size organization can have its key servers and applications hosted in a secure Tier III data center on a high-performance virtual host set up and maintained by Progent's IT support experts. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client retains ownership of the data, the operating system platforms, and the applications. Because the environment is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to a different hardware environment without a time-consuming and technically risky reinstallation process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, your business is not locked into a single hosting provider. Find out more about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that utilizes SentinelOne's cutting edge behavior-based analysis technology to defend physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade legacy signature-based anti-virus products. ProSight Active Security Monitoring safeguards local and cloud resources and provides a single platform to automate the entire malware attack lifecycle including blocking, identification, mitigation, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Top features include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and automatic network-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Physical and Virtual Endpoint Protection and Exchange Email Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection managed services offer economical multi-layer protection for physical servers and virtual machines, desktops, smartphones, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP uses adaptive security and advanced heuristics for round-the-clock monitoring and reacting to cyber threats from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP provides firewall protection, intrusion alarms, endpoint control, and web filtering via leading-edge technologies incorporated within a single agent accessible from a single console. Progent's security and virtualization consultants can help you to design and implement a ProSight ESP environment that addresses your company's specific requirements and that helps you prove compliance with government and industry information protection regulations. Progent will assist you define and implement security policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alerts that call for urgent attention. Progent's consultants can also help you to install and verify a backup and restore system like ProSight Data Protection Services so you can recover rapidly from a potentially disastrous cyber attack such as ransomware. Read more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.