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Crypto-Ransomware : Your Worst IT Nightmare
Ransomware has become a modern cyberplague that presents an enterprise-level threat for organizations unprepared for an assault. Different versions of crypto-ransomware like the CrySIS, CryptoWall, Locky, NotPetya and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for a long time and continue to cause havoc. Newer strains of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Snatch or Nephilim, as well as additional unnamed malware, not only encrypt on-line data files but also infect many configured system backups. Data replicated to cloud environments can also be ransomed. In a poorly designed system, it can render automatic restore operations impossible and basically knocks the network back to square one.

Getting back online programs and data after a ransomware outage becomes a sprint against time as the targeted business fights to stop the spread, remove the ransomware, and restore business-critical activity. Because ransomware needs time to replicate, penetrations are usually sprung at night, when penetrations in many cases take more time to discover. This multiplies the difficulty of rapidly marshalling and organizing a capable response team.

Progent provides an assortment of help services for protecting organizations from crypto-ransomware events. Among these are staff training to help recognize and not fall victim to phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, along with deployment of modern security appliances with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to discover and extinguish day-zero threats quickly. Progent in addition offers the assistance of experienced ransomware recovery engineers with the skills and perseverance to rebuild a breached environment as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Support Services
Subsequent to a crypto-ransomware attack, paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not guarantee that merciless criminals will provide the keys to decipher any of your files. Kaspersky Labs ascertained that seventeen percent of ransomware victims never recovered their files after having sent off the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The gamble is also expensive. Ryuk ransoms are often a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom demand can reach millions of dollars. The other path is to re-install the key elements of your Information Technology environment. Absent access to full system backups, this calls for a wide range of IT skills, professional team management, and the willingness to work non-stop until the recovery project is finished.

For decades, Progent has offered certified expert Information Technology services for companies across the U.S. and has earned Microsoft's Partnership certification status in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's team of subject matter experts includes consultants who have attained advanced industry certifications in important technologies such as Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's security experts have earned internationally-recognized certifications including CISA, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Visit Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has experience with financial systems and ERP applications. This breadth of experience affords Progent the skills to quickly identify necessary systems and re-organize the surviving parts of your network system after a crypto-ransomware attack and configure them into a functioning network.

Progent's recovery team has top notch project management tools to coordinate the complicated restoration process. Progent appreciates the urgency of acting rapidly and together with a customer's management and Information Technology team members to prioritize tasks and to put key services back on-line as soon as humanly possible.

Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Intrusion Recovery
A small business engaged Progent after their organization was brought down by Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been created by North Korean state sponsored criminal gangs, suspected of adopting technology exposed from the United States National Security Agency. Ryuk seeks specific businesses with limited tolerance for disruption and is one of the most profitable incarnations of ransomware. High publicized organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based info warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a single-location manufacturing business based in Chicago with about 500 employees. The Ryuk attack had disabled all business operations and manufacturing processes. The majority of the client's data protection had been directly accessible at the start of the intrusion and were eventually encrypted. The client was evaluating paying the ransom (in excess of $200,000) and hoping for the best, but in the end made the decision to use Progent.

Progent worked with the customer to rapidly identify and prioritize the most important applications that needed to be restored to make it possible to restart departmental operations:

• Microsoft Active Directory
• Email
• Accounting/MRP

Within 2 days, Progent was able to recover Active Directory services to its pre-virus state. Progent then completed rebuilding and storage recovery on key applications. All Exchange Server data and attributes were intact, which facilitated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to find non-encrypted OST data files (Microsoft Outlook Off-Line Folder Files) on various workstations and laptops to recover email messages. A not too old offline backup of the customer's accounting/ERP systems made it possible to restore these required programs back servicing users. Although significant work needed to be completed to recover fully from the Ryuk virus, essential systems were recovered quickly:

During the next couple of weeks key milestones in the recovery project were achieved through close cooperation between Progent engineers and the client:

• In-house web applications were brought back up with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Microsoft Exchange Server exceeding 4 million historical messages was spun up and accessible to users.
• CRM/Customer Orders/Invoicing/AP/Accounts Receivables (AR)/Inventory Control functions were completely recovered.
• A new Palo Alto Networks 850 security appliance was brought on-line.
• Ninety percent of the user workstations were functioning as before the incident.

Conclusion
A potential business extinction disaster was averted through the efforts of results-oriented professionals, a wide array of subject matter expertise, and tight collaboration. Although in analyzing the event afterwards the ransomware incident detailed here should have been identified and disabled with modern security technology solutions and ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, user training, and appropriate security procedures for information protection and proper patching controls, the reality is that state-sponsored cyber criminals from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and represent an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a crypto-ransomware virus, remember that Progent's team of professionals has proven experience in ransomware virus blocking, cleanup, and file restoration.

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

Additional Crypto-Ransomware Protection Services Offered by Progent
Progent offers companies in Reston a portfolio of online monitoring and security assessment services to help you to minimize the threat from crypto-ransomware. These services include modern machine learning capability to detect zero-day strains of ransomware that are able to 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 Plans make it feasible for small and mid-size companies to utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology to achieve advanced network resilience. Progent takes care of the daily monitoring and maintenance for you, so your network expands easily without becoming an obstacle. For an affordable and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's full-service IT team can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level plans include remote monitoring and management (RMM), cybersecurity, automatic monthly patching, and documentation. As your needs grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed options such as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, Multi-Factor Authentication, pen testing, or WiFi management.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop remote monitoring service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management technology to help keep your network operating efficiently by tracking the state of critical computers that drive your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch uncovers a problem, an alarm is transmitted automatically to your specified IT staff and your Progent engineering consultant so all looming issues can be resolved before they can disrupt your network. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a unified, cloud-based solution for monitoring and managing your network, server, and desktop devices by providing an environment for performing common tedious jobs. These include health monitoring, update management, automated repairs, endpoint setup, backup and recovery, anti-virus response, secure remote access, built-in and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint status reporting, and troubleshooting assistance. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM spots a serious problem, it transmits an alert to your specified IT personnel and your Progent consultant so that potential issues can be taken care of before they interfere with productivity. Learn more details about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop monitoring consulting.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure management service that makes it easy and affordable for small and mid-sized businesses to map out, monitor, optimize and troubleshoot their connectivity appliances such as routers and switches, firewalls, and load balancers as well as servers, client computers and other devices. Incorporating cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, ProSight WAN Watch ensures that infrastructure topology maps are always updated, captures and manages the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, tracks performance, and sends notices when problems are detected. By automating tedious network management processes, ProSight WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary chores such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, locating devices that need important updates, or identifying the cause of performance issues. Find out more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure monitoring and management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Applications
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding suite of real-time and in-depth management reporting plug-ins designed to integrate with the top ticketing and remote network monitoring applications including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and features color coding to surface and contextualize critical issues like spotty support follow-up or endpoints with out-of-date AVs. By exposing ticketing or network health problems concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting improves network value, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For more information, see ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): Managed Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has partnered with leading backup software providers to create ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a family of subscription-based offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS products automate and track your backup processes and enable transparent backup and rapid recovery of vital files, apps, system images, plus VMs. ProSight DPS lets you avoid data loss resulting from equipment failures, natural calamities, fire, malware like ransomware, user error, ill-intentioned employees, or software glitches. Managed services in the ProSight DPS 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 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent service representative can assist you to identify which of these fully managed 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 service that uses the technology of top data security vendors to provide centralized control and world-class security for all your inbound and outbound email. The hybrid architecture of Progent's Email Guard managed service combines cloud-based filtering with a local security gateway appliance to offer advanced defense against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks, and other email-based malware. The cloud filter acts as a first line of defense and keeps the vast majority of threats from making it to your security perimeter. This decreases your exposure to external attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's onsite security gateway appliance adds a deeper level of inspection for incoming email. For outbound email, the local security gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam protection, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The on-premises security gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more information, see ProSight Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Remediation, and Protected Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo MFA managed services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, when you log into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to verify who you are via a device that only you have and that uses a different network channel. A broad selection of devices can be utilized for this second form of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate multiple validation devices. To find out more about Duo identity validation services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for access security.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Help Center: Support Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Center services permit your information technology staff to offload Call Center services to Progent or split activity for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house network support resources and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Co-managed Help Desk Service provides a transparent extension of your in-house network support resources. Client interaction with the Service Desk, provision of technical assistance, issue escalation, trouble ticket creation and tracking, efficiency metrics, and maintenance of the service database are consistent whether incidents are resolved by your core support resources, by Progent's team, or by a combination. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Service Desk services.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Identification and Remediation
  Progent's Active Defense Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates cutting edge behavior-based analysis technology to guard endpoints as well as servers and VMs against new malware attacks such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely evade legacy signature-matching anti-virus products. Progent Active Security Monitoring services protect on-premises and cloud resources and offers a single platform to manage the entire threat lifecycle including blocking, detection, containment, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Top features include single-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service and real-time system-wide immunization against new threats. Learn 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, update, find and safeguard data related to your network infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can quickly find passwords or IP addresses and be alerted about upcoming expirations of SSL certificates or domains. By cleaning up and organizing your IT documentation, you can save as much as 50% of time wasted searching for critical information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a common location for holding and sharing all documents required for managing your network infrastructure such as standard operating procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports a high level of automation for collecting and associating IT information. Whether you're making enhancements, performing regular maintenance, or responding to a crisis, 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 support services for patch management offer organizations of any size a versatile and affordable alternative for assessing, validating, scheduling, implementing, and tracking updates to your dynamic information network. In addition to maximizing the protection and reliability of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services free up time for your in-house IT staff to focus on more strategic projects and tasks that deliver maximum business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's patch management support services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted VMs at Progent's Tier III Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size business can have its critical servers and applications hosted in a secure fault tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual host set up and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. Under Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client owns the data, the operating system platforms, and the apps. Since the system is virtualized, it can be moved immediately to a different hosting environment without requiring a time-consuming and difficult reinstallation process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, your business is not locked into one 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 service that utilizes SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based machine learning technology to defend physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which easily escape traditional signature-based AV tools. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects on-premises and cloud-based resources and offers a unified platform to automate the complete threat progression including blocking, identification, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Key features include single-click rollback with Windows VSS and automatic system-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) endpoint protection and ransomware recovery.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Physical and Virtual Endpoint Security and Exchange Email Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services deliver ultra-affordable in-depth protection for physical servers and VMs, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange email. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and modern behavior analysis for continuously monitoring and responding to cyber assaults from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP offers two-way firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint control, and web filtering through cutting-edge tools packaged within a single agent managed from a single control. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can help your business to design and implement a ProSight ESP environment that meets your company's specific requirements and that helps you achieve and demonstrate compliance with legal and industry data protection regulations. Progent will assist you define and configure policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alarms that call for immediate attention. Progent can also help you to install and test a backup and restore system such as ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover quickly from a destructive security attack like ransomware. Read more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.