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Computer Virus Assessment and Restoration Experts

Ransomware : Your Worst IT Disaster
Ransomware has become an escalating cyber pandemic that presents an existential threat for organizations vulnerable to an attack. Multiple generations of ransomware such as Dharma, CryptoWall, Locky, Syskey and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for many years and continue to inflict havoc. More recent strains of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Conti or Egregor, plus frequent unnamed newcomers, not only encrypt on-line files but also infiltrate most configured system protection. Data synchronized to off-site disaster recovery sites can also be encrypted. In a poorly architected data protection solution, it can render automatic recovery impossible and basically sets the network back to zero.

Retrieving services and data after a crypto-ransomware outage becomes a race against the clock as the victim fights to stop lateral movement and clear the virus and to restore enterprise-critical operations. Because ransomware requires time to replicate, attacks are usually launched during weekends and nights, when successful attacks tend to take longer to notice. This multiplies the difficulty of promptly marshalling and organizing a qualified mitigation team.

Progent provides an assortment of support services for protecting businesses from ransomware attacks. These include staff training to help identify and not fall victim to phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, along with installation of the latest generation security gateways with AI technology from SentinelOne to detect and quarantine new cyber attacks quickly. Progent in addition can provide the assistance of veteran crypto-ransomware recovery consultants with the skills and perseverance to restore a compromised network as urgently as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Services
Soon after a ransomware attack, even paying the ransom in cryptocurrency does not guarantee that distant criminals will provide the keys to unencrypt any or all of your data. Kaspersky ascertained that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never recovered their files after having paid the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The risk is also very costly. Ryuk ransoms frequently range from fifteen to forty BTC ($120,000 and $400,000). This is greatly higher than the typical ransomware demands, which ZDNET estimates to be around $13,000. The other path is to piece back together the vital components of your IT environment. Without access to full information backups, this requires a broad range of skills, professional project management, and the ability to work continuously until the recovery project is complete.

For two decades, Progent has made available expert Information Technology services for businesses in Fort Wayne and throughout the United States and has achieved Microsoft's Gold Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's team of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes professionals who have earned top industry certifications in foundation technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's security consultants have garnered internationally-renowned industry certifications including CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, ISACA CRISC, and SANS GIAC. (Visit Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has experience with accounting and ERP software solutions. This breadth of experience provides Progent the capability to quickly determine critical systems and integrate the remaining parts of your network system after a ransomware attack and configure them into a functioning network.

Progent's recovery team deploys state-of-the-art project management systems to orchestrate the complicated recovery process. Progent knows the importance of working rapidly and in unison with a client's management and Information Technology team members to prioritize tasks and to put critical systems back on line as fast as humanly possible.

Customer Case Study: A Successful Crypto-Ransomware Virus Response
A business hired Progent after their company was penetrated by the Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been created by North Korean state sponsored criminal gangs, possibly adopting approaches leaked from America's NSA organization. Ryuk attacks specific organizations with little room for operational disruption and is among the most profitable incarnations of crypto-ransomware. Well Known organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based information warehousing and cloud computing business, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's client is a single-location manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago with around 500 staff members. The Ryuk intrusion had shut down all company operations and manufacturing capabilities. Most of the client's system backups had been online at the beginning of the intrusion and were destroyed. The client was pursuing financing for paying the ransom demand (exceeding two hundred thousand dollars) and praying for the best, but ultimately made the decision to use Progent.

Progent worked together with the client to quickly assess and prioritize the most important areas that needed to be addressed in order to continue business functions:

• Windows Active Directory
• Exchange Server
• Accounting and Manufacturing Software

In less than 48 hours, Progent was able to recover Active Directory to its pre-attack state. Progent then helped perform reinstallations and storage recovery on the most important servers. All Microsoft Exchange Server data and attributes were intact, which facilitated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to assemble non-encrypted OST data files (Outlook Off-Line Data Files) on staff workstations and laptops in order to recover mail messages. A not too old off-line backup of the client's financials/ERP systems made them able to recover these essential programs back online. Although significant work needed to be completed to recover completely from the Ryuk event, essential services were recovered quickly:

Over the next couple of weeks key milestones in the recovery project were made in close collaboration between Progent team members and the client:

• Internal web applications were returned to operation with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Microsoft Exchange Server containing more than 4 million archived emails was brought on-line and accessible to users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoicing/Accounts Payable (AP)/Accounts Receivables (AR)/Inventory capabilities were 100% restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was set up and programmed.
• Nearly all of the desktops and laptops were fully operational.

Conclusion
A probable business-ending catastrophe was averted by results-oriented experts, a broad spectrum of knowledge, and tight teamwork. Although in retrospect the crypto-ransomware virus incident described here would have been identified and disabled with up-to-date cyber security technology solutions and recognized best practices, staff education, and well designed incident response procedures for information protection and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the reality remains that government-sponsored cyber criminals from Russia, China and elsewhere are relentless and are an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a ransomware virus, remember that Progent's team of professionals has substantial experience in ransomware virus blocking, remediation, and data restoration.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent can provide businesses in Fort Wayne a variety of online monitoring and security assessment services designed to assist you to minimize your vulnerability to crypto-ransomware. These services incorporate next-generation AI capability to uncover zero-day strains of ransomware that are able to get past legacy signature-based security solutions.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based machine learning tools to guard physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which routinely escape legacy signature-based AV products. ProSight ASM protects local and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to manage the complete threat lifecycle including blocking, infiltration detection, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Top capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows VSS and real-time network-wide immunization against new threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Endpoint Protection and Microsoft Exchange Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection managed services offer ultra-affordable in-depth security for physical and virtual servers, desktops, smartphones, and Exchange email. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and advanced heuristics for continuously monitoring and responding to cyber assaults from all vectors. ProSight ESP provides firewall protection, intrusion alarms, device management, and web filtering via leading-edge tools packaged within one agent accessible from a unified console. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can help your business to plan and implement a ProSight ESP environment that addresses your organization's specific needs and that allows you achieve and demonstrate compliance with government and industry data security standards. Progent will help you specify and configure policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alerts that require urgent attention. Progent can also help 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 destructive cyber attack like ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Exchange filtering.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with advanced backup software companies to produce ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a family of subscription-based offerings that provide backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS services manage and track your backup operations and enable non-disruptive backup and fast recovery of important files/folders, applications, system images, and VMs. ProSight DPS helps you protect against data loss resulting from hardware failures, natural disasters, fire, cyber attacks like ransomware, human mistakes, ill-intentioned insiders, or application glitches. Managed backup services in the ProSight Data Protection Services product line include ProSight DPS 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 fully managed services are best suited for your network.

• ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam filtering service that uses the infrastructure of leading information security vendors to deliver centralized control and comprehensive security for your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid structure of Progent's Email Guard integrates a Cloud Protection Layer with a local security gateway device to offer advanced defense against spam, viruses, Denial of Service Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-borne threats. Email Guard's cloud filter acts as a first line of defense and blocks most threats from reaching your security perimeter. This decreases your exposure to inbound attacks and saves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway device adds a deeper layer of analysis for inbound email. For outbound email, the on-premises gateway provides AV and anti-spam filtering, DLP, and email encryption. The local security gateway can also assist Exchange Server to track and protect internal email that stays within your security perimeter. For more information, visit Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Remote Monitoring and Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure management service that makes it easy and inexpensive for small and mid-sized businesses to diagram, track, enhance and troubleshoot their networking appliances like switches, firewalls, and access points plus servers, printers, client computers and other networked devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art Remote Monitoring and Management technology, WAN Watch makes sure that infrastructure topology diagrams are always updated, copies and manages the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and sends notices when potential issues are detected. By automating tedious management processes, ProSight WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary chores like network mapping, expanding your network, locating appliances that need critical software patches, or resolving performance bottlenecks. Learn more about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure management services.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Remote Monitoring
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop monitoring service that uses state-of-the-art remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to help keep your network running at peak levels by tracking the health of vital computers that drive your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch detects an issue, an alert is sent automatically to your designated IT personnel and your assigned Progent consultant so any looming issues can be resolved before they have a chance to impact your network. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small organization can have its critical servers and applications hosted in a secure Tier III data center on a high-performance virtual host configured and managed by Progent's IT support professionals. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer retains ownership of the data, the OS software, and the applications. Because the environment is virtualized, it can be ported easily to an alternate hardware solution without requiring a lengthy and difficult configuration process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into a single hosting service. Learn more details about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  ProSight IT Asset Management service is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that allows you to create, update, find and safeguard data related to your network infrastructure, processes, business apps, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or IP addresses and be alerted about upcoming expirations of SSLs ,domains or warranties. By updating and managing your IT documentation, you can eliminate as much as 50% of time wasted searching for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a centralized location for storing and sharing all documents required for managing your network infrastructure such as standard operating procedures and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and associating IT information. Whether you're planning enhancements, doing regular maintenance, or responding to an emergency, ProSight IT Asset Management gets you the knowledge you need as soon as you need it. Learn more about ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent Active Protection Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Detection and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Defense Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection service that utilizes next generation behavior-based analysis technology to defend endpoints as well as servers and VMs against new malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade traditional signature-based AV tools. Progent ASM services protect on-premises and cloud resources and offers a single platform to automate the entire malware attack lifecycle including filtering, identification, containment, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and real-time system-wide immunization against new attacks. Read more about Progent's ransomware protection and recovery services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Call Center: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Desk services allow your IT staff to outsource Support Desk services to Progent or split activity for support services transparently between your in-house support group and Progent's nationwide pool of certified IT service technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Service Desk provides a smooth supplement to your internal network support team. User access to the Help Desk, delivery of support services, problem escalation, ticket creation and updates, performance metrics, and management of the support database are consistent regardless of whether issues are resolved by your core network support resources, by Progent's team, or by a combination. Read more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Call Center services.

• Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's managed services for patch management provide organizations of all sizes a versatile and affordable alternative for assessing, validating, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information network. Besides optimizing the security and functionality of your computer network, Progent's patch management services free up time for your IT team to focus on line-of-business projects and activities that deliver maximum business value from your network. Read more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Remediation, and Protected Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo authentication managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to verify who you are on a device that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added means of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple verification devices. For details about ProSight Duo identity validation services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time and In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding line of real-time and in-depth management reporting plug-ins designed to integrate with the industry's top ticketing and remote network monitoring applications including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to surface and contextualize critical issues such as spotty support follow-up or endpoints with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health concerns concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting improves productivity, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For more information, visit ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.