Parsippany 24-Hour Critical Ransomware
Malware Detection and Restoration Consulting

Crypto-Ransomware : Your Crippling Information Technology Disaster
Ransomware has become a too-frequent cyberplague that presents an enterprise-level threat for businesses of all sizes unprepared for an attack. Different versions of crypto-ransomware such as Dharma, WannaCry, Locky, NotPetya and MongoLock cryptoworms have been running rampant for a long time and continue to inflict destruction. More recent variants of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, Conti or Nephilim, along with more as yet unnamed viruses, not only encrypt online data but also infiltrate many configured system protection mechanisms. Information synchronized to cloud environments can also be corrupted. In a poorly designed system, it can render automatic restoration useless and effectively knocks the datacenter back to square one.

Getting back services and information after a ransomware event becomes a race against the clock as the victim fights to contain the damage, clear the virus, and resume enterprise-critical activity. Because ransomware needs time to spread, attacks are usually sprung on weekends, when successful penetrations tend to take longer to notice. This compounds the difficulty of rapidly mobilizing and organizing a knowledgeable mitigation team.

Progent has a variety of support services for protecting enterprises from ransomware events. These include staff education to become familiar with and not fall victim to phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, in addition to installation of next-generation security appliances with AI technology from SentinelOne to detect and extinguish zero-day threats quickly. Progent in addition offers the assistance of seasoned ransomware recovery engineers with the track record and perseverance to rebuild a compromised network as quickly as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Services
Subsequent to a crypto-ransomware event, even paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not guarantee that merciless criminals will return the needed codes to decrypt any of your files. Kaspersky determined that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never recovered their information even after having sent off the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The gamble is also very costly. Ryuk ransoms are commonly a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can be in the millions of dollars. The alternative is to piece back together the vital components of your IT environment. Without the availability of complete system backups, this calls for a wide complement of skill sets, well-coordinated team management, and the willingness to work 24x7 until the job is over.

For two decades, Progent has offered professional Information Technology services for businesses throughout the United States and has achieved Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's pool of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes consultants who have earned top industry certifications in key technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and major distributions of Linux. Progent's cyber security specialists have garnered internationally-renowned industry certifications including CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, ISACA CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Visit Progent's certifications). Progent also has experience in financial systems and ERP software solutions. This breadth of experience affords Progent the skills to quickly determine necessary systems and integrate the remaining pieces of your computer network environment after a ransomware event and configure them into an operational network.

Progent's ransomware team utilizes best of breed project management systems to orchestrate the sophisticated recovery process. Progent understands the importance of working swiftly and in unison with a client's management and IT staff to assign priority to tasks and to get critical services back on line as soon as humanly possible.

Client Story: A Successful Ransomware Incident Recovery
A small business escalated to Progent after their network was taken over by Ryuk crypto-ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been launched by North Korean state sponsored hackers, possibly adopting approaches leaked from the U.S. NSA organization. Ryuk seeks specific organizations with limited room for disruption and is among the most lucrative incarnations of crypto-ransomware. Well Known targets include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a single-location manufacturing business headquartered in Chicago with about 500 staff members. The Ryuk event had disabled all essential operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's system backups had been on-line at the beginning of the attack and were damaged. The client was actively seeking loans for paying the ransom demand (more than $200K) and wishfully thinking for good luck, but ultimately called Progent.

Progent worked together with the client to quickly understand and prioritize the key areas that had to be restored to make it possible to restart company operations:

• Active Directory (AD)
• Microsoft Exchange Email
• Financials/MRP

Within 48 hours, Progent was able to rebuild Active Directory to its pre-intrusion state. Progent then performed rebuilding and storage recovery on the most important systems. All Exchange data and attributes were usable, which greatly helped the restore of Exchange. Progent was able to locate local OST files (Outlook Email Offline Data Files) on staff desktop computers in order to recover email messages. A not too old offline backup of the businesses financials/ERP software made it possible to return these required applications back servicing users. Although significant work still had to be done to recover completely from the Ryuk virus, critical systems were returned to operations quickly:

During the following few weeks important milestones in the restoration project were accomplished through tight cooperation between Progent consultants and the client:

• In-house web applications were restored without losing any information.
• The MailStore Server containing more than four million historical emails was brought on-line and available for users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoicing/Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivables/Inventory Control functions were completely operational.
• A new Palo Alto Networks 850 firewall was installed.
• 90% of the user PCs were functioning as before the incident.

Conclusion
A likely enterprise-killing disaster was dodged through the efforts of dedicated experts, a broad range of technical expertise, and tight teamwork. Although in analyzing the event afterwards the crypto-ransomware virus incident described here should have been disabled with advanced cyber security technology solutions and recognized best practices, user education, and appropriate security procedures for information backup and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the fact remains that state-sponsored criminal cyber gangs from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and are an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a crypto-ransomware attack, feel confident that Progent's roster of experts has a proven track record in crypto-ransomware virus defense, removal, and data disaster recovery.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent can provide companies in Parsippany a variety of remote monitoring and security evaluation services to help you to reduce the threat from ransomware. These services incorporate modern artificial intelligence capability to uncover new variants of crypto-ransomware that can get past legacy signature-based anti-virus 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 leading-edge IT resilience. Progent handles the daily monitoring and maintenance for you, so your system expands easily without holding you back. For a low and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's experienced IT team can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level plans include remote monitoring and management (RMM), cybersecurity, monthly patching, and documentation. As your requirements grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed solutions like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), pen testing, or WiFi management.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop remote monitoring service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to help keep your network operating efficiently by checking the state of vital computers that drive your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alert is sent immediately to your specified IT staff and your Progent engineering consultant so all looming problems can be addressed before they have a chance to impact productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring consulting.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a centralized, cloud-based solution for managing your client-server infrastructure by providing tools for streamlining common tedious jobs. These can include health monitoring, update management, automated remediation, endpoint setup, backup and restore, A/V defense, secure remote access, built-in and custom scripts, resource inventory, endpoint profile reports, and debugging help. When ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious incident, it sends an alert to your specified IT management staff and your Progent consultant so that emerging problems can be taken care of before they interfere with your network. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Network Infrastructure Remote Monitoring and Management
  ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure management service that makes it easy and affordable for smaller organizations to map, monitor, reconfigure and troubleshoot their networking hardware like routers and switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers plus servers, client computers and other devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, WAN Watch ensures that network maps are always updated, copies and manages the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and generates alerts when issues are detected. By automating tedious management and troubleshooting processes, ProSight WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary tasks such as making network diagrams, reconfiguring your network, finding appliances that need important updates, or identifying the cause of performance problems. Learn more about ProSight WAN Watch infrastructure management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Applications
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding family of in-depth management reporting utilities created to integrate with the industry's leading ticketing and remote network monitoring applications such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to surface and contextualize key issues like spotty support follow-through or machines with out-of-date AVs. By identifying ticketing or network health problems concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting enhances productivity, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For more information, see ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring applications.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with leading backup/restore software providers to produce ProSight Data Protection Services, a portfolio of subscription-based offerings that provide backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS services automate and monitor your backup processes and allow transparent backup and rapid recovery of critical files, apps, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS helps you protect against data loss caused by hardware breakdown, natural calamities, fire, malware like ransomware, human error, malicious employees, or application glitches. Managed services available in the ProSight DPS 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 expert can assist you to determine which of these fully managed backup 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 and virus filtering and email encryption service that incorporates the infrastructure of top data security companies to provide centralized control and world-class security for all your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid architecture of Progent's Email Guard integrates a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway device to offer advanced protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, DHAs, and other email-borne threats. Email Guard's Cloud Protection Layer acts as a preliminary barricade and blocks most unwanted email from making it to your network firewall. This reduces your exposure to external attacks and saves system bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway appliance provides a further level of analysis for incoming email. For outbound email, the onsite security gateway provides AV and anti-spam protection, DLP, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more details, see Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Remediation, and Secure Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo authentication services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you log into a secured online account and give your password you are requested to verify your identity on a device that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A broad selection of out-of-band devices can be used as this second means of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Progent's Outsourced/Shared Help Desk: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Call Desk managed services enable your information technology group to offload Support Desk services to Progent or divide activity for Service Desk support transparently between your internal support group and Progent's nationwide pool of IT service technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Co-managed Service Desk provides a seamless extension of your corporate IT support team. User access to the Help Desk, delivery of support, escalation, ticket generation and tracking, efficiency metrics, and management of the service database are consistent whether incidents are resolved by your in-house network support group, by Progent, or by a combination. Read more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Help Center services.

• Progent Active Protection Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Detection and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates next generation behavior-based analysis technology to defend endpoints as well as servers and VMs against new malware attacks like ransomware and email phishing, which easily get by traditional signature-matching anti-virus products. Progent Active Security Monitoring services safeguard on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to manage the complete threat progression including protection, identification, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic network-wide immunization against new attacks. Read 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 makes it easy to create, maintain, find and safeguard data related to your network infrastructure, processes, applications, and services. You can instantly find passwords or IP addresses and be warned about impending expirations of SSL certificates or warranties. By updating and managing your network documentation, you can save up to 50% of time wasted looking for critical information about your network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a centralized location for holding and collaborating on all documents required for managing your network infrastructure such as recommended procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers advanced automation for gathering and relating IT information. Whether you're making enhancements, doing maintenance, or reacting to an emergency, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the data you need the instant you need it. Read more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent's Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's managed services for patch management provide organizations of all sizes a versatile and cost-effective alternative for evaluating, validating, scheduling, applying, and documenting updates to your ever-evolving information system. In addition to optimizing the protection and functionality of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services allow your in-house IT staff to focus on line-of-business initiatives and activities that deliver maximum business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's software/firmware update 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 business can have its key servers and apps hosted in a secure fault tolerant data center on a fast virtual host set up and managed by Progent's IT support professionals. With the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client owns the data, the operating system software, and the applications. Because the system is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to a different hardware solution without a lengthy and difficult configuration procedure. 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 is an endpoint protection service that utilizes SentinelOne's cutting edge behavior-based machine learning tools to guard physical and virtual endpoints against new malware assaults such as ransomware and email phishing, which routinely evade legacy signature-based anti-virus tools. ProSight ASM safeguards local and cloud resources and provides a unified platform to address the complete threat lifecycle including filtering, detection, containment, cleanup, and post-attack 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. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring endpoint protection and ransomware recovery.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Endpoint Protection and Exchange Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection managed services deliver affordable multi-layer protection for physical servers and VMs, desktops, smartphones, and Microsoft Exchange. ProSight ESP utilizes contextual security and advanced heuristics for continuously monitoring and reacting to cyber threats from all vectors. ProSight ESP delivers two-way firewall protection, intrusion alarms, device control, and web filtering through cutting-edge technologies packaged within one agent managed from a unified console. Progent's security and virtualization consultants can help your business to plan and implement a ProSight ESP deployment that addresses your company's unique requirements and that helps you achieve and demonstrate compliance with government and industry information protection standards. Progent will help you define and implement policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your network and respond to alarms that require urgent action. Progent's consultants can also help your company to set up and verify a backup and disaster recovery solution such as ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover quickly from a destructive security attack such as ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection unified endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.