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Crypto-Ransomware : Your Feared IT Disaster
Crypto-Ransomware has become a too-frequent cyberplague that presents an extinction-level threat for businesses poorly prepared for an assault. Multiple generations of crypto-ransomware such as Reveton, CryptoWall, Locky, SamSam and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for years and still inflict havoc. Newer versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Conti or Egregor, along with additional as yet unnamed viruses, not only encrypt on-line critical data but also infect most available system backup. Data replicated to cloud environments can also be held hostage. In a poorly designed data protection solution, it can render automatic restoration hopeless and effectively sets the network back to square one.

Recovering programs and information after a crypto-ransomware attack becomes a sprint against the clock as the targeted business struggles to contain, remove the virus, and resume enterprise-critical operations. Because crypto-ransomware requires time to replicate, penetrations are often sprung during nights and weekends, when successful attacks tend to take longer to notice. This compounds the difficulty of rapidly marshalling and coordinating a capable response team.

Progent offers a range of services for securing enterprises from ransomware events. These include team education to help identify and not fall victim to phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) for remote monitoring and management, in addition to deployment of the latest generation security solutions with machine learning technology from SentinelOne to detect and extinguish new cyber attacks automatically. Progent in addition can provide the assistance of expert crypto-ransomware recovery professionals with the skills and perseverance to rebuild a breached environment as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Services
Following a crypto-ransomware event, paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that merciless criminals will return the needed codes to decipher any of your information. Kaspersky estimated that 17% of crypto-ransomware victims never restored their data after having paid the ransom, resulting in more losses. The gamble is also costly. Ryuk ransoms are commonly several hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom can reach millions. The fallback is to piece back together the critical components of your IT environment. Absent the availability of full system backups, this requires a broad range of skill sets, professional project management, and the ability to work non-stop until the recovery project is completed.

For decades, Progent has provided certified expert IT services for businesses throughout the United States and has achieved Microsoft's Partnership certification status in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's pool of subject matter experts includes consultants who have been awarded high-level industry certifications in key technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity experts have garnered internationally-renowned certifications including CISM, CISSP, CRISC, GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has experience in financial systems and ERP software solutions. This breadth of expertise provides Progent the skills to knowledgably identify important systems and re-organize the surviving parts of your computer network environment following a ransomware attack and rebuild them into a functioning system.

Progent's ransomware team of experts deploys best of breed project management systems to orchestrate the complex restoration process. Progent appreciates the importance of acting swiftly and together with a client's management and IT team members to assign priority to tasks and to get critical systems back online as fast as possible.

Client Case Study: A Successful Crypto-Ransomware Incident Recovery
A business contacted Progent after their company was crashed by Ryuk crypto-ransomware. Ryuk is generally considered to have been developed by North Korean state sponsored cybercriminals, suspected of adopting technology exposed from America's NSA organization. Ryuk goes after specific companies with limited tolerance for operational disruption and is one of the most profitable instances of ransomware. Headline organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a regional manufacturing company headquartered in the Chicago metro area and has about 500 workers. The Ryuk attack had frozen all essential operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's information backups had been directly accessible at the beginning of the intrusion and were encrypted. The client considered paying the ransom (in excess of $200K) and hoping for good luck, but ultimately made the decision to use Progent.

Progent worked together with the client to rapidly understand and assign priority to the critical elements that had to be recovered to make it possible to continue business operations:

• Active Directory
• E-Mail
• Accounting and Manufacturing Software

In less than two days, Progent was able to restore Active Directory to its pre-virus state. Progent then completed rebuilding and hard drive recovery on the most important systems. All Microsoft Exchange Server data and attributes were intact, which greatly helped the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to locate non-encrypted OST data files (Outlook Email Offline Data Files) on user PCs and laptops in order to recover email data. A recent off-line backup of the customer's financials/MRP systems made them able to recover these essential services back available to users. Although a large amount of work was left to recover fully from the Ryuk virus, the most important services were returned to operations quickly:

Throughout the next month critical milestones in the restoration project were completed through tight cooperation between Progent team members and the customer:

• In-house web sites were brought back up with no loss of data.
• The MailStore Microsoft Exchange Server containing more than 4 million historical messages was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Orders/Invoices/Accounts Payable/AR/Inventory Control functions were 100% restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was installed and configured.
• Most of the user workstations were operational.

Conclusion
A potential business-ending disaster was evaded by dedicated professionals, a wide range of IT skills, and close collaboration. Although in hindsight the crypto-ransomware virus penetration described here would have been shut down with modern cyber security technology and NIST Cybersecurity Framework best practices, team education, and well thought out security procedures for backup and proper patching controls, the reality remains that state-sponsored cybercriminals from Russia, China and elsewhere are relentless and will continue. If you do fall victim to a ransomware virus, feel confident that Progent's team of experts has a proven track record in ransomware virus blocking, cleanup, and file recovery.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent offers companies in Midtown Manhattan a range of remote monitoring and security evaluation services to assist you to reduce your vulnerability to crypto-ransomware. These services utilize modern artificial intelligence technology to detect new variants of crypto-ransomware that can get past legacy signature-based security solutions.

• ProSight Managed Service Plans: for Small to Mid-size Businesses
  Progent's ProSight Managed IT Service Packages make it feasible for small and mid-size companies to utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology to achieve advanced IT resilience. Progent takes care of the daily monitoring and management for you, so your system scales readily without holding you back. For a low and predictable monthly price, Progent's full-service IT team can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level packages include RMM, security, automatic monthly patching, and reporting. As your needs expand, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-in-class options like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, Multi-Factor Authentication, penetration testing, or WiFi management.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop remote monitoring managed service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to help keep your IT system running at peak levels by checking the state of critical assets that power your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alert is transmitted automatically to your designated IT management staff and your Progent consultant so any potential problems can be resolved before they have a chance to disrupt your network. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software delivers a centralized, cloud-driven solution for monitoring and managing your network, server, and desktop devices by providing an environment for streamlining common time-consuming tasks. These include health monitoring, update management, automated repairs, endpoint deployment, backup and restore, anti-virus defense, secure remote access, standard and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint profile reporting, and troubleshooting support. When ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious issue, it transmits an alarm to your designated IT staff and your assigned Progent consultant so that potential issues can be fixed before they interfere with your network. Learn more details about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it easy and inexpensive for smaller businesses to map, monitor, optimize and debug their networking hardware such as routers and switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers plus servers, printers, endpoints and other devices. Using cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, WAN Watch ensures that infrastructure topology diagrams are always updated, captures and displays the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and generates notices when potential issues are discovered. By automating tedious network management activities, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off common chores like network mapping, reconfiguring your network, finding appliances that require critical updates, or identifying the cause of performance problems. Find out more about ProSight WAN Watch infrastructure monitoring and management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time and In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding line of in-depth management reporting utilities created to work with the leading ticketing and network monitoring applications including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and features color coding to highlight and contextualize key issues such as inconsistent support follow-through or machines with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health problems clearly 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.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with leading backup/restore software providers to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a selection of subscription-based management offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS products manage and track your data backup operations and allow transparent backup and fast recovery of vital files/folders, applications, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets your business protect against data loss caused by equipment breakdown, natural calamities, fire, malware like ransomware, user mistakes, malicious employees, or software bugs. Managed backup services available in the ProSight Data Protection Services product family include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight DPS ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to identify which of these fully managed backup services are best suited 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 vendors to provide web-based management and comprehensive security for your email traffic. The powerful structure of Email Guard combines cloud-based filtering with an on-premises gateway appliance to offer complete protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-based malware. The Cloud Protection Layer acts as a first line of defense and blocks most threats from reaching your network firewall. This decreases your vulnerability to external attacks and conserves system bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises gateway device provides a deeper layer of inspection for inbound email. For outgoing email, the local security gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, DLP, and email encryption. The on-premises gateway can also assist Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email that stays inside your corporate firewall. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo MFA service plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and give your password you are asked to verify your identity on a device that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be used for this added means of authentication including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may register several verification devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for access security.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Service Center: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Desk services permit your information technology team to offload Help Desk services to Progent or divide activity for Service Desk support transparently between your internal support group and Progent's nationwide roster of IT service engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Service Desk offers a smooth supplement to your internal support resources. End user access to the Service Desk, delivery of technical assistance, problem escalation, ticket creation and updates, performance measurement, and management of the support database are cohesive regardless of whether issues are taken care of by your corporate support staff, by Progent, or by a combination. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/shared Call Center services.

• Active Defense Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Identification and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection solution that utilizes cutting edge behavior analysis tools to guard endpoint devices and servers and VMs against new malware assaults such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely escape legacy signature-based anti-virus tools. Progent ASM services safeguard local and cloud resources and provides a single platform to automate the entire threat progression including blocking, detection, containment, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Key capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time network-wide immunization against new attacks. Find out more about Progent's ransomware protection and cleanup services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  ProSight IT Asset Management service is an IT infrastructure documentation management service that allows you to capture, maintain, retrieve and protect information about your IT infrastructure, processes, applications, and services. You can quickly locate passwords or serial numbers and be warned about impending expirations of SSL certificates ,domains or warranties. By updating and organizing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can save as much as 50% of time spent searching for critical information about your network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a common repository for storing and sharing all documents required for managing your business network such as recommended procedures and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and associating IT data. Whether you're making improvements, doing maintenance, or responding to an emergency, 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's Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's managed services for patch management offer businesses of all sizes a versatile and cost-effective alternative for assessing, validating, scheduling, implementing, and tracking software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving information network. In addition to maximizing the protection and functionality of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services free up time for your in-house IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives and tasks that derive maximum business value from your information network. Find out more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's Tier III Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size organization can have its key servers and apps hosted in a protected fault tolerant data center on a fast virtual host set up and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer owns the data, the operating system platforms, and the apps. Since the environment is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to a different hardware environment without requiring a time-consuming and technically risky configuration process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into one 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) solution that utilizes SentinelOne's cutting edge behavior-based machine learning technology to guard physical and virtual endpoints against new malware assaults such as ransomware and email phishing, which routinely get by legacy signature-based AV tools. ProSight ASM protects local and cloud-based resources and provides a single platform to automate the complete malware attack progression including blocking, detection, mitigation, cleanup, and forensics. Top features include single-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time system-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Physical and Virtual Endpoint Security and Exchange Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services offer ultra-affordable in-depth protection for physical and virtual servers, desktops, smartphones, and Microsoft Exchange. ProSight ESP uses adaptive security and advanced machine learning for continuously monitoring and reacting to security threats from all vectors. ProSight ESP provides firewall protection, penetration alerts, endpoint control, and web filtering through cutting-edge technologies incorporated within a single agent accessible from a single console. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can assist your business to design and implement a ProSight ESP environment that meets your organization's unique requirements and that helps you demonstrate compliance with legal and industry information protection regulations. Progent will assist you define and configure security policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and respond to alarms that call for urgent action. Progent's consultants can also help you to install and test a backup and disaster recovery solution like ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover rapidly from a potentially disastrous cyber attack like ransomware. Read more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint protection and Microsoft Exchange filtering.