Computer Security and Compliance

Restoring services and data after a ransomware attack becomes a race against the clock as the victim struggles to contain and remove the virus and to restore business-critical operations. Because ransomware takes time to spread, assaults are often launched during weekends, when attacks may take longer to detect. This compounds the difficulty of promptly mobilizing and coordinating a qualified response team.

Progent offers a variety of services for protecting organizations from ransomware attacks. These include user training to recognize and avoid phishing exploits, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, plus deployment of modern security gateways with AI technology to identify and suppress zero-day threats. Progent also offers the services of experienced ransomware recovery consultants with the skills and commitment to rebuild a compromised network as quickly as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Recovery Services
After a ransomware attack, paying the ransom in Bitcoin cryptocurrency does not guarantee that cyber criminals will provide the keys to decrypt all your data. Kaspersky estimated that 17% of ransomware victims never recovered their files after having paid the ransom. The gamble is also expensive. Ryuk ransoms commonly range from 15-40 BTC ($120,000 and $400,000). This is well above the average ransomware demand for small businesses, which ZDNET estimated to be around $13,000. The alternative is to piece back together the vital components of your IT environment. Without the availability of full backups, this requires a broad range of expertise, well-coordinated project management, and the willingness to work 24x7 until the job is done.

Progent has provided professional IT services throughout the United States for two decades and has earned Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's team of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes consultants who have earned high-level certifications in foundation technologies including Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity experts have earned internationally-recognized certifications including CISA, CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC, and GIAC. (See Progent's certifications). Progent also has expertise in financial management and ERP application software. This breadth of expertise gives Progent the ability to identify and consolidate the surviving pieces of your IT environment after a ransomware attack and rebuild them into a functioning system.

Progent's recovery team uses state-of-the-art project management tools to coordinate the complex recovery process and understands the importance of working quickly and in unison with a client's management and IT staff to prioritize tasks and to get essential services back on line as fast as possible.

Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Recovery
A client engaged Progent after their organization was attacked by Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is believed to have been launched by North Korean state hackers, possibly using technology leaked from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ryuk targets specific companies with little tolerance for disruption and is one of the most profitable versions of ransomware. Headline victims include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing firm, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's client is a manufacturer based in Chicago and has about 500 employees. The Ryuk attack had shut down all business operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's backups had been online at the time of the attack and were encrypted. The client considered paying the ransom (in excess of $200,000) and hoping for the best, but in the end called Progent.

Progent worked with the client to identify and prioritize the key areas that needed to be addressed in order to restart business operations:

• Active Directory
• Email
• Accounting/ERP

Within two days, Progent was able to restore Active Directory to its pre-attack state. Progent then helped perform reinstallations and hard drive recovery on critical systems. All Exchange ties and attributes were intact, which facilitated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was also able to locate intact OST files (Outlook Offline Folder Files) on various workstations to recover email data. A recent offline backup of the client's accounting/ERP software made it possible to return these vital applications back online. Although significant work remained to recover fully from the Ryuk attack, core services were restored quickly:

Over the next few weeks important milestones in the recovery process were achieved through close cooperation between Progent and the client:

• Internal web sites were brought back up with no loss of data.
• The MailStore Server with over 4 million archived emails was spun up and working.
• Orders/Invoices/AP/AR/BOM and inventory were 100% restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 Firewall was installed.
• 90% of user workstations were operational.

Conclusion
A potential business disaster was averted by hard work, a broad range of technical expertise, and close teamwork. Although in hindsight the ransomware attack described here could have been prevented with modern security technology, user training, and appropriate procedures for backup and applying software patches, the fact remains that government-sponsored cyber criminals from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and are not going away. If you do fall victim to ransomware, remember that Progent's team has proven experience in ransomware virus removal and file recovery.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent offers a range of remote monitoring and security assessment services to help you minimize the threat from ransomware. These services include next-generation machine learning technology to detect new variants of ransomware that can escape detection by traditional signature-based anti-virus solutions.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM): Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Recovery
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates SentinelOne's cutting-edge machine learning tools to defend endpoints as well as servers and VMs against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which easily evade legacy signature-matching anti-virus tools. ProSight ASM protects local and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to address the entire threat progression including protection, identification, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and automatic system-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense based on SentinelOne's behavioral analysis technology.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Unified Physical and Virtual Endpoint Protection
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection managed services offer economical multi-layer security for physical servers and virtual machines, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and advanced machine learning for round-the-clock monitoring and reacting to security threats from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP delivers two-way firewall protection, penetration alerts, endpoint management, and web filtering via cutting-edge tools incorporated within a single agent accessible from a single control. Progent's data protection and virtualization experts can assist your business to design and configure a ProSight ESP environment that meets your company's unique requirements and that allows you achieve and demonstrate compliance with legal and industry data security regulations. Progent will assist you define and configure policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and respond to alarms that require immediate action. Progent's consultants can also assist your company to install and test a backup and disaster recovery system like ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover rapidly from a destructive security attack such as ransomware. Read more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Managed Backup and Recovery
  ProSight Data Protection Services offer small and mid-sized organizations an affordable end-to-end solution for reliable backup/disaster recovery. Available at a low monthly rate, ProSight DPS automates and monitors your backup activities and allows rapid recovery of vital files, applications and VMs that have become lost or corrupted as a result of hardware breakdowns, software glitches, disasters, human mistakes, or malware attacks like ransomware. ProSight DPS can help you back up, retrieve and restore files, folders, applications, system images, plus Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware virtual machine images. Critical data can be protected on the cloud, to a local storage device, or mirrored to both. Progent's cloud backup specialists can provide world-class support to configure ProSight Data Protection Services to comply with government and industry regulatory standards like HIPAA, FINRA, PCI and Safe Harbor and, whenever necessary, can assist you to recover your critical data. Read more about ProSight DPS Managed Backup.

• The ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report Service
  The ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is a low-cost service centered on a phone discussion with a Progent information assurance expert. The interview is intended to assess your organization's preparedness either to stop or recover rapidly from a ransomware attack. Progent will work with you directly to collect information concerning your existing AV defense and backup/recovery platform, and Progent will then produce a written Basic Security and Best Practices Report document describing how you can follow best practices to create a cost-effective security and backup system that meets your business needs. For more information, see Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report Service.

Contact Progent for Ransomware Recovery Consulting and Remote Security Monitoring
For ransomware recovery or prevention expertise, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.

Ransomware 24x7 Hot Line: Call 800-462-8800
Progent's Ransomware 24x7 Hot Line is designed to assist you to carry out the time-critical first step in responding to a ransomware attack by containing the malware. Progent's online ransomware expert can assist businesses to identify and isolate breached servers and endpoints and protect undamaged resources from being penetrated. If your network has been penetrated by any version of ransomware, act fast. Get immediate help by calling Progent's Ransomware Hot Line at 800-462-8800. For details, see Progent's Ransomware 24x7 Hot Line.