Lima 24x7 Critical Ransomware
Computer Virus Identification and Recovery Experts

Ransomware : Your Worst Information Technology Nightmare
Ransomware has become an escalating cyber pandemic that represents an extinction-level danger for organizations poorly prepared for an assault. Multiple generations of crypto-ransomware like the CryptoLocker, WannaCry, Locky, NotPetya and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for years and still cause havoc. The latest versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Snatch or Nephilim, along with additional as yet unnamed malware, not only encrypt on-line critical data but also infect all available system protection. Data replicated to cloud environments can also be encrypted. In a poorly architected data protection solution, it can render any recovery impossible and effectively knocks the entire system back to square one.

Retrieving services and data following a ransomware event becomes a race against time as the targeted business struggles to contain the damage, clear the ransomware, and resume enterprise-critical activity. Because ransomware requires time to spread, assaults are frequently sprung during weekends and nights, when penetrations tend to take longer to uncover. This multiplies the difficulty of promptly assembling and organizing an experienced response team.

Progent offers a range of solutions for protecting enterprises from ransomware events. Among these are staff education to help recognize and avoid phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, in addition to deployment of the latest generation security gateways with artificial intelligence technology from SentinelOne to detect and disable new threats intelligently. Progent in addition offers the services of veteran ransomware recovery professionals with the talent and perseverance to re-deploy a breached system as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Recovery Support Services
Following a ransomware penetration, sending the ransom in cryptocurrency does not guarantee that cyber criminals will provide the keys to unencrypt any or all of your data. Kaspersky Labs determined that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never recovered their data even after having sent off the ransom, resulting in more losses. The gamble is also costly. Ryuk ransoms are typically a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom demand can reach millions of dollars. The fallback is to setup from scratch the essential elements of your Information Technology environment. Absent the availability of full system backups, this calls for a broad complement of IT skills, professional project management, and the willingness to work 24x7 until the task is complete.

For two decades, Progent has provided professional Information Technology services for companies throughout the US and has achieved Microsoft's Partnership certification status in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's group of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes professionals who have attained advanced industry certifications in important technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's security specialists have garnered internationally-renowned certifications including CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, ISACA CRISC, GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has expertise in financial systems and ERP software solutions. This breadth of experience affords Progent the ability to knowledgably identify critical systems and consolidate the remaining parts of your IT environment after a crypto-ransomware attack and rebuild them into an operational system.

Progent's security team of experts deploys best of breed project management systems to orchestrate the complicated restoration process. Progent understands the importance of working swiftly and together with a client's management and IT resources to prioritize tasks and to get essential systems back on line as fast as possible.

Client Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Virus Restoration
A customer sought out Progent after their company was penetrated by Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is generally considered to have been launched by Northern Korean government sponsored cybercriminals, suspected of using algorithms leaked from the United States NSA organization. Ryuk attacks specific businesses with little or no ability to sustain disruption and is among the most profitable iterations of ransomware viruses. Major organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based info warehousing and cloud computing firm, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a small manufacturing company headquartered in the Chicago metro area with around 500 staff members. The Ryuk penetration had brought down all business operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's information backups had been online at the time of the attack and were destroyed. The client was evaluating paying the ransom demand (in excess of two hundred thousand dollars) and praying for the best, but ultimately called Progent.

Progent worked together with the customer to quickly determine and assign priority to the mission critical applications that needed to be restored to make it possible to restart company operations:

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

Within 2 days, Progent was able to rebuild Windows Active Directory to its pre-intrusion state. Progent then charged ahead with setup and storage recovery of critical applications. All Exchange schema and attributes were usable, which greatly helped the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to collect local OST data files (Microsoft Outlook Off-Line Folder Files) on staff desktop computers in order to recover mail information. A not too old off-line backup of the customer's accounting/ERP systems made it possible to return these essential programs back on-line. Although a lot of work needed to be completed to recover fully from the Ryuk virus, critical systems were restored rapidly:

Over the next couple of weeks important milestones in the recovery project were accomplished through tight cooperation between Progent engineers and the customer:

• Self-hosted web applications were brought back up with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Exchange Server with over 4 million archived emails was spun up and accessible to users.
• CRM/Orders/Invoicing/AP/AR/Inventory Control capabilities were 100 percent recovered.
• A new Palo Alto 850 security appliance was brought online.
• 90% of the desktops and laptops were being used by staff.

Conclusion
A probable company-ending catastrophe was dodged by top-tier professionals, a wide spectrum of technical expertise, and tight collaboration. Although in retrospect the ransomware incident described here would have been prevented with modern cyber security systems and security best practices, staff education, and well designed security procedures for backup and applying software patches, the fact remains that state-sponsored hackers from China, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and will continue. If you do get hit by a crypto-ransomware penetration, remember that Progent's team of experts has proven experience in crypto-ransomware virus blocking, removal, and data recovery.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent can provide businesses in Lima a portfolio of remote monitoring and security assessment services to assist you to minimize your vulnerability to ransomware. These services include modern artificial intelligence capability to uncover new variants of ransomware that are able to get past legacy signature-based security solutions.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that utilizes SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based analysis tools to defend physical and virtual endpoints against new malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely get by traditional signature-based AV products. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects local and cloud resources and provides a unified platform to address the entire malware attack progression including filtering, infiltration detection, mitigation, cleanup, and forensics. Key capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows VSS and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Endpoint Security and Exchange Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services deliver economical in-depth protection for physical and virtual servers, desktops, smartphones, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP uses adaptive security and advanced heuristics for continuously monitoring and responding to cyber threats from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP offers two-way firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint control, and web filtering via cutting-edge technologies packaged within a single agent accessible from a single console. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can help you to design and configure a ProSight ESP environment that meets your company's specific needs and that helps you demonstrate compliance with government and industry information protection regulations. Progent will help you specify and implement policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alerts that require urgent attention. Progent's consultants can also assist your company to install and verify a backup and restore system such as ProSight Data Protection Services so you can recover quickly from a destructive security attack like ransomware. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint protection and Exchange filtering.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with advanced backup/restore technology companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a family of offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS products automate and track your data backup operations and allow transparent backup and rapid restoration of important files/folders, apps, images, and Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets you protect against data loss resulting from equipment breakdown, natural disasters, fire, cyber attacks like ransomware, human error, malicious employees, or application bugs. Managed backup services available 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 using Barracuda dedicated hardware, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent expert can assist you to determine which of these fully managed 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 and virus filtering service that incorporates the infrastructure of top information security vendors to provide web-based control and world-class security for your email traffic. The hybrid architecture of Email Guard integrates cloud-based filtering with an on-premises gateway appliance to offer advanced protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks, and other email-based threats. Email Guard's cloud filter serves as a preliminary barricade and keeps most unwanted email from reaching your network firewall. This reduces your exposure to inbound attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's on-premises gateway device provides a further layer of analysis for incoming email. For outbound email, the onsite gateway provides anti-virus and anti-spam protection, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email that originates and ends within your corporate firewall. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Management
  ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for small and mid-sized businesses to map, track, optimize and troubleshoot their connectivity hardware like switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers plus servers, client computers and other devices. Using cutting-edge RMM technology, WAN Watch ensures that infrastructure topology diagrams are always updated, copies and displays the configuration of virtually all devices connected to your network, tracks performance, and generates alerts when issues are detected. By automating tedious management processes, WAN Watch can knock hours off ordinary tasks such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, finding devices that require critical updates, or isolating performance problems. 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 managed service that uses advanced remote monitoring and management technology to help keep your network running efficiently by checking the health of critical assets that drive your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alert is sent immediately to your specified IT personnel and your assigned Progent consultant so any looming problems can be addressed before they have a chance to impact productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring consulting.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's Tier III Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size business can have its key servers and apps hosted in a protected fault tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual host set up and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client owns the data, the operating system platforms, and the applications. Since the environment is virtualized, it can be ported easily to an alternate hosting solution without requiring a lengthy and difficult configuration process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into a single hosting provider. Find out more details about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service is an IT infrastructure documentation management service that makes it easy to capture, update, find and protect data related to your network infrastructure, procedures, applications, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or IP addresses and be alerted automatically about upcoming expirations of SSL certificates or domains. By updating and managing your network documentation, you can save up to 50% of time spent searching for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a centralized location for storing and collaborating on all documents required for managing your network infrastructure like recommended procedures and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and relating IT data. Whether you're planning enhancements, performing maintenance, or reacting to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the knowledge you need the instant you need it. Read more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent Active Defense Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Identification and Remediation
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection service that utilizes next generation behavior analysis tools to guard endpoints and physical and virtual servers against new malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely get by traditional signature-matching AV products. Progent ASM services safeguard local and cloud resources and offers a single platform to address the entire threat lifecycle including filtering, identification, containment, remediation, and forensics. Top features include single-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Find out more about Progent's ransomware protection and recovery services.

• Progent's Outsourced/Shared Help Desk: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Desk managed services allow your IT staff to offload Call Center services to Progent or split responsibilities for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house support team and Progent's nationwide pool of IT service technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Shared Help Desk Service offers a transparent extension of your corporate support staff. End user access to the Help Desk, provision of technical assistance, escalation, trouble ticket creation and updates, efficiency metrics, and management of the service database are cohesive whether issues are resolved by your internal network support staff, by Progent, or a mix of the two. Learn more about Progent's outsourced/shared Service Center services.

• Progent's Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's support services for software and firmware patch management offer organizations of any size a flexible and affordable solution for evaluating, testing, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information system. Besides optimizing the protection and functionality of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services free up time for your IT staff to concentrate on more strategic initiatives and tasks that derive maximum business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's patch management support services.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Remediation, and Secure Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo MFA service plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, when you log into a protected application and give your password you are requested to verify who you are on a device that only you have and that uses a different network channel. A broad selection of devices can be utilized for this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may register several validation devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo identity validation services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time and In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding suite of real-time reporting utilities created to work with the industry's top ticketing and network monitoring applications such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and features color coding to highlight and contextualize critical issues such as inconsistent support follow-up or machines with missing patches. By exposing 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 applications.