Riverside 24-Hour Emergency Ransomware
Virus Identification and Removal Consulting

Ransomware : Your Crippling IT Catastrophe
Crypto-Ransomware has become a modern cyber pandemic that poses an existential threat for businesses of all sizes poorly prepared for an attack. Different iterations of crypto-ransomware such as CrySIS, Fusob, Bad Rabbit, Syskey and MongoLock cryptoworms have been running rampant for many years and continue to inflict havoc. The latest versions of ransomware such as Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Conti or Egregor, as well as more as yet unnamed malware, not only encrypt online information but also infiltrate any accessible system backups. Information synched to the cloud can also be corrupted. In a poorly designed data protection solution, it can render any recovery useless and effectively knocks the network back to square one.

Getting back on-line applications and information following a crypto-ransomware outage becomes a race against the clock as the victim tries its best to contain the damage, clear the ransomware, and restore mission-critical activity. Because crypto-ransomware takes time to spread, penetrations are usually sprung on weekends, when attacks in many cases take longer to uncover. This multiplies the difficulty of quickly marshalling and orchestrating a capable mitigation team.

Progent has a range of help services for protecting enterprises from ransomware attacks. These include team member education to help identify and avoid phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, plus installation of the latest generation security gateways with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to detect and extinguish new threats automatically. Progent in addition can provide the services of veteran ransomware recovery professionals with the track record and perseverance to reconstruct a breached network as urgently as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Recovery Support Services
Subsequent to a ransomware invasion, paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that cyber hackers will provide the codes to unencrypt any of your information. Kaspersky determined that 17% of crypto-ransomware victims never recovered their files after having sent off the ransom, resulting in more losses. The risk is also costly. Ryuk ransoms are often a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can reach millions. The alternative is to re-install the key elements of your IT environment. Without the availability of complete data backups, this requires a wide range of skill sets, top notch project management, and the ability to work non-stop until the recovery project is finished.

For decades, Progent has provided expert IT services for businesses across the US and has achieved Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's pool of subject matter experts includes consultants who have been awarded top industry certifications in foundation technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity experts have garnered internationally-renowned certifications including CISA, CISSP, CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has expertise in financial management and ERP software solutions. This breadth of experience affords Progent the ability to efficiently identify critical systems and consolidate the surviving parts of your computer network system following a crypto-ransomware penetration and rebuild them into an operational system.

Progent's ransomware team has best of breed project management systems to coordinate the complicated recovery process. Progent appreciates the importance of working rapidly and together with a client's management and IT team members to prioritize tasks and to get critical services back on line as fast as possible.

Client Case Study: A Successful Crypto-Ransomware Attack Restoration
A client escalated to Progent after their network system was attacked by Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been launched by North Korean state hackers, possibly using approaches exposed from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ryuk goes after specific companies with limited ability to sustain operational disruption and is among the most profitable versions of crypto-ransomware. Well Known organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based info warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a regional manufacturer headquartered in the Chicago metro area and has around 500 employees. The Ryuk penetration had shut down all essential operations and manufacturing capabilities. The majority of the client's backups had been online at the time of the attack and were damaged. The client was taking steps for paying the ransom demand (in excess of two hundred thousand dollars) and wishfully thinking for the best, but in the end called Progent.

Progent worked hand in hand the client to rapidly assess and assign priority to the essential systems that had to be addressed to make it possible to resume departmental operations:

• Windows Active Directory
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Financials/MRP

In less than 2 days, Progent was able to restore Active Directory services to its pre-intrusion state. Progent then performed setup and storage recovery of needed systems. All Exchange data and configuration information were intact, which greatly helped the restore of Exchange. Progent was able to find local OST files (Microsoft Outlook Off-Line Folder Files) on staff desktop computers in order to recover email messages. A recent off-line backup of the customer's accounting/MRP systems made them able to restore these essential programs back available to users. Although significant work was left to recover totally from the Ryuk attack, core services were returned to operations quickly:

Throughout the next month important milestones in the recovery process were made in tight cooperation between Progent team members and the client:

• In-house web applications were brought back up with no loss of data.
• The MailStore Server with over 4 million archived emails was spun up and accessible to users.
• CRM/Orders/Invoicing/Accounts Payable (AP)/Accounts Receivables/Inventory capabilities were completely restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was installed.
• Ninety percent of the user workstations were being used by staff.

Conclusion
A probable company-ending catastrophe was dodged with hard-working experts, a wide range of knowledge, and tight collaboration. Although in post mortem the ransomware penetration described here would have been identified and disabled with modern security technology and recognized best practices, staff education, and well thought out incident response procedures for backup and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the reality is that government-sponsored cybercriminals from Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are tireless and will continue. If you do fall victim to a ransomware penetration, remember that Progent's roster of professionals has a proven track record in ransomware virus defense, remediation, and information systems restoration.

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

Additional Crypto-Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent offers businesses in Riverside a range of remote monitoring and security assessment services designed to help you to minimize your vulnerability to crypto-ransomware. These services include modern machine learning technology to uncover new strains of ransomware that are able to escape detection by traditional signature-based security products.

• ProSight Managed Service Plans: for Small to Mid-size Businesses
  Progent's ProSight Managed IT Service Packages make it realistic for small and mid-size companies to deploy Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solutions to achieve advanced network resilience. Progent takes care of the necessary monitoring and maintenance for you, so your network scales easily without becoming an obstacle. For a low and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's full-service IT group can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level plans include remote monitoring and management, cybersecurity, automatic monthly patching, and documentation. As your needs expand, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed solutions like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, Multi-Factor Authentication, penetration testing, or WiFi management.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Remote Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop monitoring service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to keep your IT system running at peak levels by checking the health of vital computers that drive your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alarm is sent immediately to your specified IT staff and your assigned Progent consultant so that all potential problems can be addressed before they can disrupt your network. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring consulting.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM Solution for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software delivers a unified, cloud-based solution for managing your network, server, and desktop devices by providing an environment for performing common tedious jobs. These can include health monitoring, patch management, automated repairs, endpoint configuration, backup and recovery, A/V protection, secure remote access, standard and custom scripts, resource inventory, endpoint profile reports, and debugging help. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious issue, it transmits an alarm to your specified IT management staff and your Progent consultant so potential problems can be taken care of before they interfere with productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop remote monitoring consulting.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Remote Monitoring and Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure management service that makes it easy and affordable for smaller businesses to map, monitor, optimize and troubleshoot their networking appliances like switches, firewalls, and load balancers plus servers, printers, endpoints and other devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art Remote Monitoring and Management technology, WAN Watch ensures that network diagrams are kept updated, copies and manages the configuration of virtually all devices connected to your network, tracks performance, and generates alerts when issues are discovered. By automating time-consuming network management processes, WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary tasks such as making network diagrams, reconfiguring your network, finding appliances that require critical software patches, or isolating performance bottlenecks. Find out more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure monitoring and management services.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time and In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Applications
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding family of real-time and in-depth management reporting utilities created to work with the leading ticketing and network monitoring platforms including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to highlight and contextualize key issues like inconsistent support follow-up or endpoints with out-of-date AVs. By exposing ticketing or network health problems clearly 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.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has partnered with advanced backup technology companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a selection of subscription-based management outsourcing plans that provide backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS products automate and track your data backup operations and allow non-disruptive backup and rapid restoration of critical files/folders, apps, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS helps you avoid data loss resulting from hardware breakdown, natural disasters, fire, cyber attacks like ransomware, user error, malicious employees, or application bugs. Managed services available in the ProSight DPS portfolio include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup based on Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to identify which of these fully managed 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 service that incorporates the technology of leading information security companies to deliver web-based control and comprehensive security for your email traffic. The hybrid architecture of Progent's Email Guard managed service integrates cloud-based filtering with an on-premises gateway appliance to offer advanced defense against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-based malware. The Cloud Protection Layer acts as a preliminary barricade and blocks the vast majority of unwanted email from reaching your network firewall. This reduces your vulnerability to inbound threats and saves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway appliance adds a deeper level of inspection for incoming email. For outgoing email, the on-premises gateway offers AV and anti-spam filtering, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The local gateway can also help Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more information, see Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo MFA managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, when you log into a protected online account and enter your password you are asked to verify who you are via a device that only you have and that uses a different network channel. A broad selection of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this second means of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several verification devices. To find out more about Duo identity validation services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for access security.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Call Desk: Call Center Managed Services
  Progent's Call Desk managed services allow your IT group to offload Call Center services to Progent or divide activity for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house network support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of IT service engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service offers a transparent extension of your corporate support resources. User interaction with the Help Desk, provision of support, problem escalation, trouble ticket creation and tracking, performance metrics, and maintenance of the support database are cohesive whether issues are resolved by your internal IT support staff, by Progent's team, or a mix of the two. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/shared Call Desk services.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Identification and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection solution that utilizes cutting edge behavior-based analysis technology to defend endpoints and physical and virtual servers against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which easily get by legacy signature-based AV tools. Progent Active Security Monitoring services safeguard on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to address the entire threat lifecycle including blocking, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Key features include single-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time network-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Learn more about Progent's ransomware defense and recovery services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that makes it easy to create, maintain, retrieve and protect data about your IT infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or serial numbers and be warned about upcoming expirations of SSLs or warranties. By cleaning up and organizing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can save up to half of time wasted trying to find critical information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a centralized repository for storing and sharing all documents required for managing your business network such as recommended procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports advanced automation for gathering and associating IT data. Whether you're planning enhancements, performing maintenance, or reacting to an emergency, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the data you require the instant you need it. Learn more about ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's managed services for software and firmware patch management provide organizations of all sizes a versatile and affordable solution for evaluating, testing, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your ever-evolving IT network. In addition to maximizing the security and reliability of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services free up time for your IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives and tasks that deliver the highest business value from your network. Learn more about Progent's patch management support services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size business can have its key servers and applications hosted in a secure fault tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual machine host configured and maintained by Progent's network support experts. Under Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer owns the data, the operating system software, and the applications. Because the environment is virtualized, it can be moved immediately to an alternate hosting solution without requiring a time-consuming and difficult configuration procedure. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into a single hosting service. Learn more details about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that incorporates SentinelOne's cutting edge behavior-based machine learning technology to guard physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily get by traditional signature-based anti-virus products. ProSight ASM safeguards on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to address the complete malware attack progression including protection, detection, containment, remediation, and forensics. Key features include one-click rollback with Windows VSS and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring 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 multi-layer security for physical servers and virtual machines, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP utilizes adaptive security and advanced machine learning for continuously monitoring and reacting to security threats from all vectors. ProSight ESP offers two-way firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint control, and web filtering through leading-edge tools packaged within a single agent managed from a single control. Progent's data protection and virtualization experts can assist you to design and implement a ProSight ESP deployment that meets your company's unique requirements and that helps you prove compliance with legal and industry information protection standards. Progent will help you define and configure policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and respond to alarms that require urgent attention. Progent can also assist your company to set up and test a backup and disaster recovery system like ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can get back in business quickly from a potentially disastrous security attack such as ransomware. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection unified endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange email filtering.