24-7 Virginia Beach Immediate Crypto-Ransomware
Infection Damage Assessment and Restoration Consulting

Ransomware : Your Worst IT Catastrophe
Ransomware has become an escalating cyberplague that represents an enterprise-level danger for businesses unprepared for an attack. Multiple generations of ransomware like the Dharma, CryptoWall, Locky, SamSam and MongoLock cryptoworms have been circulating for many years and still inflict destruction. Newer versions of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Snatch or Egregor, as well as daily unnamed viruses, not only do encryption of online information but also infect many accessible system backup. Information synched to cloud environments can also be held hostage. In a vulnerable data protection solution, this can render automated restoration useless and effectively knocks the network back to square one.

Recovering services and data after a crypto-ransomware attack becomes a sprint against the clock as the targeted organization tries its best to contain, eradicate the virus, and resume enterprise-critical operations. Due to the fact that ransomware takes time to move laterally, penetrations are often sprung during weekends and nights, when successful penetrations in many cases take more time to identify. This compounds the difficulty of rapidly assembling and organizing a capable response team.

Progent offers an assortment of help services for protecting organizations from crypto-ransomware penetrations. These include user education to help recognize and not fall victim to phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, plus setup and configuration of the latest generation security gateways with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to identify and extinguish new cyber threats automatically. Progent also can provide the services of seasoned crypto-ransomware recovery professionals with the track record and perseverance to reconstruct a breached environment as quickly as possible.

Progent's Crypto-Ransomware Restoration Help
Soon after a crypto-ransomware attack, paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that merciless criminals will provide the needed codes to unencrypt any of your data. Kaspersky Labs ascertained that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never restored their files after having paid the ransom, resulting in additional losses. The gamble is also expensive. Ryuk ransoms are typically a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can be in the millions. The fallback is to setup from scratch the key elements of your Information Technology environment. Absent access to full information backups, this requires a broad range of skills, well-coordinated project management, and the capability to work 24x7 until the job is finished.

For twenty years, Progent has made available expert Information Technology services for companies throughout the US 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 attained top certifications in foundation technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity experts have earned internationally-recognized industry certifications including CISM, CISSP, ISACA CRISC, 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 expertise affords Progent the capability to knowledgably identify important systems and integrate the remaining components of your network environment after a ransomware event and configure them into a functioning system.

Progent's recovery group has state-of-the-art project management tools to orchestrate the complicated recovery process. Progent knows the importance of acting swiftly and in unison with a client's management and IT staff to assign priority to tasks and to get key applications back online as soon as humanly possible.

Client Story: A Successful Ransomware Attack Recovery
A small business contacted Progent after their organization was crashed by Ryuk ransomware virus. Ryuk is thought to have been developed by North Korean state criminal gangs, possibly using techniques exposed from the United States NSA organization. Ryuk targets specific companies with little ability to sustain disruption and is one of the most profitable instances of ransomware viruses. Well Known victims include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing business, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a small manufacturer based in Chicago and has about 500 staff members. The Ryuk attack had brought down all company operations and manufacturing capabilities. Most of the client's system backups had been directly accessible at the time of the intrusion and were encrypted. The client was evaluating paying the ransom demand (in excess of $200K) and wishfully thinking for the best, but in the end reached out to Progent.

Progent worked with the customer to quickly understand and assign priority to the most important areas that had to be restored in order to restart business functions:

• Windows Active Directory
• Exchange Server
• MRP System

In less than 2 days, Progent was able to rebuild Windows Active Directory to its pre-penetration state. Progent then performed setup and storage recovery on the most important servers. All Exchange schema and attributes were usable, which greatly helped the restore of Exchange. Progent was able to collect local OST data files (Outlook Off-Line Data Files) on user PCs in order to recover email data. A recent off-line backup of the customer's financials/ERP software made it possible to restore these essential programs back online. Although a lot of work was left to recover fully from the Ryuk attack, essential services were returned to operations rapidly:

Throughout the next couple of weeks key milestones in the restoration process were completed through tight collaboration between Progent engineers and the client:

• In-house web sites were brought back up without losing any data.
• The MailStore Server with over 4 million historical messages was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Customer Orders/Invoicing/AP/Accounts Receivables (AR)/Inventory functions were 100% functional.
• A new Palo Alto 850 security appliance was brought on-line.
• Nearly all of the user desktops were functioning as before the incident.

Conclusion
A likely business-ending catastrophe was averted due to results-oriented professionals, a broad array of subject matter expertise, and close teamwork. Although in post mortem the ransomware virus attack described here would have been identified and prevented with modern security solutions and ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, user education, and well designed incident response procedures for data protection and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the reality remains that government-sponsored cyber criminals from Russia, China and elsewhere are relentless and will continue. If you do fall victim to a ransomware virus, remember that Progent's roster of professionals has a proven track record in ransomware virus defense, remediation, and file recovery.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent can provide companies in Virginia Beach a variety of remote monitoring and security assessment services designed to help you to reduce the threat from ransomware. These services utilize modern AI capability to detect zero-day variants of ransomware that can escape detection by traditional signature-based anti-virus products.

• ProSight Managed Service Packages: for Small to Mid-size Businesses
  Progent's ProSight Managed IT Service Packages make it realistic for small and mid-size companies to utilize 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 expands easily without becoming an obstacle. For a low and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's experienced IT group can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level packages include remote monitoring and management, security, automatic monthly patching, and documentation. As your needs grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed solutions such as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup and restore, Multi-Factor Authentication, 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 state-of-the-art remote monitoring and management (RMM) techniques to keep your IT system operating at peak levels by tracking the health of vital assets that drive your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch uncovers an issue, an alarm is transmitted immediately to your designated IT staff and your assigned Progent consultant so any potential problems can be addressed before they have a chance to disrupt your network. Find out more details about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM Solution for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software delivers a centralized, cloud-driven solution for managing your network, server, and desktop devices by offering an environment for streamlining common tedious tasks. These can include health checking, patch management, automated remediation, endpoint configuration, backup and restore, A/V response, remote access, standard and custom scripts, resource inventory, endpoint profile reports, and debugging help. When ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious issue, it transmits an alert to your designated IT staff and your Progent technical consultant so that emerging issues can be fixed before they impact 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
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it easy and inexpensive for small and mid-sized businesses to map, monitor, enhance and debug their connectivity hardware like switches, firewalls, and access points plus servers, endpoints and other devices. Using cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, ProSight WAN Watch makes sure that infrastructure topology diagrams are always current, captures and displays the configuration of almost all devices on your network, tracks performance, and generates notices when potential issues are detected. By automating time-consuming management processes, WAN Watch can knock hours off common tasks such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, finding devices that require critical software patches, or resolving performance issues. Learn more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Applications
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding family of in-depth reporting tools designed to integrate with the top ticketing and remote network monitoring platforms including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting incorporates Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to surface and contextualize key issues like inconsistent 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: Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has partnered with advanced backup/restore technology providers to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a family of subscription-based management offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS services manage and track your backup operations and allow transparent backup and rapid recovery of vital files/folders, applications, system images, plus VMs. ProSight DPS helps you avoid data loss caused by equipment breakdown, natural disasters, fire, malware like ransomware, human error, malicious employees, or software bugs. Managed services available in the ProSight Data Protection Services portfolio include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup based on Barracuda dedicated storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent expert can help you to determine which of these fully managed backup services are best suited for your network.

• ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam filtering service that uses the technology of top information security companies to deliver centralized management and comprehensive security for all your inbound and outbound email. The powerful structure of Email Guard managed service integrates a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway device to offer complete protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-borne threats. The cloud filter serves as a first line of defense and blocks most threats from making it to your network firewall. This decreases your exposure to external threats and saves system bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite security gateway device provides a deeper level of analysis for inbound email. For outbound email, the local security gateway provides anti-virus and anti-spam protection, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also assist Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email that originates and ends within your security perimeter. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Remediation, and Secure Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo MFA services utilize Cisco's Duo technology to defend against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-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 confirm who you are via a device that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be utilized for this second means of authentication including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate several verification devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Progent's Outsourced/Shared Call Desk: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Center services permit your information technology staff to offload Help Desk services to Progent or divide activity for support services transparently between your internal network support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Shared Service Desk offers a seamless extension of your core network support resources. User interaction with the Service Desk, delivery of support services, escalation, trouble ticket generation and updates, efficiency measurement, and management of the support database are consistent whether issues are resolved by your in-house support group, by Progent, or by a combination. Read more about Progent's outsourced/shared Help Desk services.

• Active Defense Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Identification and Remediation
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection managed service that utilizes cutting edge behavior analysis tools to guard endpoints as well as servers and VMs against modern malware attacks like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily get by legacy signature-matching AV tools. Progent Active Security Monitoring services safeguard local and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to address the complete threat progression including protection, detection, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Key features include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic network-wide immunization against new threats. Find out more about Progent's ransomware protection and cleanup services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that allows you to capture, maintain, retrieve and protect data about your network infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can quickly find passwords or serial numbers and be alerted about impending expirations of SSL certificates or warranties. By updating and organizing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can save up to half of time spent looking for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a centralized location for holding and sharing all documents related to managing your network infrastructure such as standard operating procedures and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and associating IT information. Whether you're making improvements, performing regular maintenance, or reacting to an emergency, ProSight IT Asset Management gets you the knowledge you need when you need it. Learn more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's support services for patch management offer organizations of all sizes a flexible and affordable solution for assessing, testing, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your dynamic information system. Besides optimizing the protection and functionality of your computer network, Progent's software/firmware update management services allow your IT staff to focus on line-of-business initiatives and tasks that derive maximum business value from your information network. Find out more about Progent's software/firmware update management support services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size business can have its critical servers and applications hosted in a secure Tier III data center on a high-performance virtual machine host set up and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service model, the client owns the data, the OS software, and the apps. Because the system is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to a different hosting solution without a lengthy and difficult reinstallation process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into a single hosting provider. Find out more about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based analysis technology to defend physical and virtual endpoints against new malware assaults like ransomware and email phishing, which easily evade legacy signature-matching anti-virus products. ProSight ASM protects on-premises and cloud-based resources and provides a single platform to address the complete malware attack progression including protection, infiltration detection, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Key capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and real-time network-wide immunization against new threats. 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 Microsoft Exchange Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection managed services deliver economical multi-layer security for physical and virtual servers, desktops, smartphones, and Exchange email. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and advanced heuristics for round-the-clock monitoring and responding to security threats from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP delivers two-way firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint management, and web filtering through leading-edge technologies incorporated within a single agent managed from a single control. Progent's security and virtualization experts can assist your business to plan and configure a ProSight ESP deployment that meets your company's unique needs and that helps you prove compliance with legal and industry data security standards. Progent will assist you define and configure policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and respond to alerts that call for urgent action. Progent can also assist you to set up and test a backup and disaster recovery solution such as ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover quickly from a potentially disastrous security attack such as ransomware. Read more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.