24-Hour Bristol Urgent Ransomware
Computer Malware Damage Assessment and Recovery Support

Crypto-Ransomware : Your Feared IT Disaster
Ransomware has become a too-frequent cyberplague that represents an extinction-level danger for businesses poorly prepared for an assault. Different iterations of ransomware like the Reveton, CryptoWall, Locky, Syskey and MongoLock cryptoworms have been circulating for a long time and still cause damage. Newer variants of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, LockBit or Egregor, plus additional unnamed newcomers, not only encrypt on-line information but also infiltrate any configured system backups. Information synchronized to off-site disaster recovery sites can also be encrypted. In a poorly architected data protection solution, it can render automated restoration useless and effectively sets the entire system back to zero.

Recovering services and information after a crypto-ransomware outage becomes a race against the clock as the victim tries its best to contain, remove the ransomware, and restore mission-critical operations. Due to the fact that ransomware requires time to move laterally, assaults are frequently sprung during weekends and nights, when penetrations tend to take more time to identify. This multiplies the difficulty of rapidly mobilizing and orchestrating a qualified mitigation team.

Progent offers an assortment of services for securing organizations from ransomware events. Among these are team education to help identify and not fall victim to phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, along with installation of modern security appliances with artificial intelligence technology from SentinelOne to detect and suppress day-zero cyber threats intelligently. Progent also provides the services of seasoned ransomware recovery consultants with the track record and perseverance to reconstruct a breached environment as rapidly as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Help
Soon after a ransomware attack, sending the ransom in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that distant criminals will respond with the codes to decipher any or all of your files. Kaspersky estimated that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never recovered their files even after having sent off the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The gamble is also very costly. Ryuk ransoms are commonly a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom can reach millions. The other path is to setup from scratch the key elements of your Information Technology environment. Absent the availability of full system backups, this calls for a broad range of skills, professional team management, and the ability to work continuously until the recovery project is completed.

For two decades, Progent has made available professional Information Technology services for businesses across the United States and has achieved Microsoft's Gold Partnership certification status in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's pool of subject matter experts includes professionals who have earned high-level industry certifications in leading technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity consultants have earned internationally-recognized industry certifications including CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, ISACA CRISC, GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (See Progent's certifications). Progent also has experience with accounting and ERP application software. This breadth of experience gives Progent the skills to rapidly determine important systems and integrate the remaining pieces of your IT system following a crypto-ransomware attack and rebuild them into an operational system.

Progent's recovery team deploys powerful project management applications to orchestrate the complicated restoration process. Progent appreciates the importance of working quickly and in concert with a customer's management and IT team members to prioritize tasks and to get essential applications back on line as fast as possible.

Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Penetration Recovery
A client escalated to Progent after their network system was crashed by Ryuk crypto-ransomware. Ryuk is believed to have been created by North Korean state criminal gangs, possibly adopting strategies exposed from America's National Security Agency. Ryuk targets specific businesses with little or no tolerance for disruption and is one of the most lucrative instances of crypto-ransomware. High publicized organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a single-location manufacturer located in Chicago with about 500 employees. The Ryuk intrusion had paralyzed all business operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's information backups had been directly accessible at the start of the intrusion and were eventually encrypted. The client was pursuing financing for paying the ransom demand (exceeding $200,000) and hoping for good luck, but ultimately utilized Progent.

Progent worked hand in hand the client to quickly get our arms around and prioritize the essential applications that needed to be recovered in order to resume business functions:

• Active Directory (AD)
• Electronic Mail
• Financials/MRP

Within 2 days, Progent was able to re-build Windows Active Directory to its pre-virus state. Progent then helped perform setup and hard drive recovery on mission critical systems. All Exchange Server schema and attributes were usable, which accelerated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to find local OST files (Outlook Email Offline Data Files) on user workstations to recover email information. A not too old offline backup of the client's accounting software made it possible to recover these vital services back available to users. Although a large amount of work still had to be done to recover completely from the Ryuk virus, the most important systems were restored quickly:

Over the following month important milestones in the recovery project were accomplished through close collaboration between Progent consultants and the client:

• Internal web applications were returned to operation with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Server with over 4 million archived emails was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoices/Accounts Payable (AP)/Accounts Receivables/Inventory capabilities were fully recovered.
• A new Palo Alto Networks 850 security appliance was deployed.
• Ninety percent of the user desktops and notebooks were being used by staff.

Conclusion
A potential business-ending catastrophe was averted by top-tier experts, a wide array of subject matter expertise, and close teamwork. Although in hindsight the ransomware virus attack detailed here should have been identified and disabled with modern security solutions and recognized best practices, user and IT administrator training, and well thought out security procedures for information backup and proper patching controls, the fact remains that state-sponsored cybercriminals from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are tireless and are not going away. If you do fall victim to a ransomware penetration, remember that Progent's roster of professionals has substantial experience in ransomware virus blocking, remediation, and information systems restoration.

To read or download a PDF version of this ransomware incident report, please click:
Progent's Ransomware Incident Recovery Case Study Datasheet. (PDF - 282 KB)

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Available from Progent
Progent can provide companies in Bristol a portfolio of remote monitoring and security assessment services to assist you to reduce your vulnerability to ransomware. These services utilize modern machine learning technology to uncover zero-day variants of ransomware that can escape detection by legacy signature-based security solutions.

• 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 tools to guard physical and virtual endpoint devices against new malware attacks like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely get by legacy signature-matching anti-virus tools. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to automate the complete threat lifecycle including protection, identification, containment, remediation, and forensics. Top features include one-click rollback with Windows VSS and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Endpoint Security and Exchange Email Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) services offer economical in-depth security for physical servers and VMs, workstations, smartphones, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP utilizes adaptive security and advanced machine learning for round-the-clock monitoring and responding to cyber assaults from all vectors. ProSight ESP provides firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint control, and web filtering via leading-edge technologies incorporated within one agent managed from a unified control. Progent's data protection and virtualization experts can assist you to plan and configure a ProSight ESP environment that meets your company's unique needs and that allows you demonstrate compliance with government and industry data security regulations. Progent will assist you specify and configure security policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alarms that call for urgent action. Progent's consultants can also assist you to set up and test a backup and disaster recovery system such as ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover rapidly from a potentially disastrous security attack like ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint protection and Microsoft Exchange email filtering.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with leading backup/restore software companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a portfolio of management offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS services manage and monitor your data backup operations and enable transparent backup and fast restoration of important files/folders, apps, images, and VMs. ProSight DPS helps your business avoid data loss resulting from hardware breakdown, natural disasters, fire, cyber attacks such as ransomware, user mistakes, malicious insiders, or software glitches. Managed backup services in the ProSight DPS product line include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight DPS ECHO Backup based on Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent consultant can help you to identify which of these managed backup services are most appropriate for your IT environment.

• 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 incorporates the infrastructure of top information security companies to deliver centralized control and comprehensive security for all your inbound and outbound email. The powerful structure of Progent's Email Guard managed service combines cloud-based filtering with a local security gateway appliance to provide advanced protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, DHAs, and other email-based malware. The Cloud Protection Layer acts as a preliminary barricade and blocks the vast majority of threats from making it to your network firewall. This decreases your exposure to external attacks and saves system bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite gateway appliance provides a further layer of inspection for inbound email. For outbound email, the on-premises gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam protection, DLP, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also help Exchange Server to monitor and protect internal email traffic that stays within your security perimeter. For more details, visit Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure management service that makes it simple and affordable for smaller businesses to map out, monitor, enhance and debug their networking hardware such as routers, firewalls, and load balancers plus servers, endpoints and other networked devices. Using cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management technology, ProSight WAN Watch makes sure that network maps are always updated, captures and manages the configuration of almost all devices connected to your network, tracks performance, and sends notices when issues are detected. By automating time-consuming management processes, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off common chores like network mapping, reconfiguring your network, locating devices that need critical updates, or identifying the cause of performance issues. Learn more about ProSight WAN Watch infrastructure monitoring and management consulting.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop monitoring service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to help keep your IT system operating efficiently by tracking the health of critical computers that power your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch uncovers an issue, an alarm is transmitted immediately to your specified IT personnel and your Progent engineering consultant so all potential problems can be addressed before they have a chance to disrupt your network. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small business can have its key servers and applications hosted in a protected fault tolerant data center on a fast virtual host set up and managed by Progent's network support professionals. With the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer owns the data, the operating system software, and the applications. Because the system is virtualized, it can be moved easily to a different hardware solution without a lengthy and technically risky configuration procedure. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, your business is not tied one hosting service. Find out more about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that allows you to create, maintain, retrieve and safeguard information about your network infrastructure, processes, applications, and services. You can quickly locate passwords or serial numbers and be alerted about impending expirations of SSL certificates or warranties. By updating and organizing your IT documentation, you can eliminate as much as 50% of time spent looking for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a centralized location for holding and sharing all documents required for managing your business network like standard operating procedures (SOPs) and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports a high level of automation for collecting and associating IT data. Whether you're planning improvements, doing maintenance, or reacting to an emergency, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the knowledge you require as soon as you need it. Read more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Identification and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection managed service that utilizes next generation behavior analysis tools to defend endpoint devices as well as servers and VMs against modern malware assaults such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade traditional signature-based AV products. Progent Active Security Monitoring services protect on-premises and cloud resources and offers a single platform to address the complete malware attack progression including protection, infiltration detection, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Key features include single-click rollback using Windows VSS and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Learn more about Progent's ransomware defense and cleanup services.

• Progent's Outsourced/Shared Call Center: Support Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Help Desk services allow your information technology team to outsource Call Center services to Progent or split responsibilities for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of IT support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Help Desk Service offers a seamless supplement to your internal network support group. Client access to the Service Desk, provision of support services, problem escalation, trouble ticket generation and updates, performance metrics, and maintenance of the service database are cohesive regardless of whether issues are resolved by your in-house IT support group, by Progent, or by a combination. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/shared Call Desk services.

• Progent's Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's managed services for software and firmware patch management provide businesses of any size a flexible and affordable solution for assessing, testing, scheduling, implementing, and tracking updates to your dynamic information network. In addition to maximizing the protection and functionality of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services permit your IT staff to concentrate on more strategic initiatives and activities that deliver maximum business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's software/firmware update management services.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: Identity Validation, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo MFA managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity verification with iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, whenever you sign into a protected online account and enter your password you are requested to verify your identity on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A broad range of devices can be utilized for this added form of ID validation including a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several verification devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services.

• ProSight Reporting: In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is a growing suite of real-time reporting plug-ins designed to integrate with the industry's top ticketing and network monitoring programs such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to surface and contextualize key issues such as inconsistent support follow-through or endpoints with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health concerns clearly and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting enhances network value, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For more information, visit ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.