Rockville 24-7 Emergency Ransomware
Malware Identification and Repair Services

Ransomware : Your Crippling Information Technology Disaster
Ransomware has become a too-frequent cyberplague that presents an existential threat for businesses vulnerable to an assault. Different versions of crypto-ransomware such as Dharma, WannaCry, Locky, SamSam and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for years and continue to inflict destruction. Recent strains of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Conti or Egregor, along with daily as yet unnamed malware, not only do encryption of on-line files but also infiltrate many configured system protection. Information synched to the cloud can also be encrypted. In a poorly designed environment, this can render any recovery useless and basically sets the network back to square one.

Getting back online services and information after a crypto-ransomware intrusion becomes a race against the clock as the victim tries its best to stop lateral movement, eradicate the ransomware, and resume mission-critical operations. Because crypto-ransomware needs time to move laterally, attacks are usually launched during nights and weekends, when penetrations in many cases take longer to uncover. This compounds the difficulty of promptly mobilizing and coordinating a qualified response team.

Progent offers an assortment of solutions for protecting organizations from ransomware attacks. Among these are team member education to become familiar with and not fall victim to phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) for remote monitoring and management, plus setup and configuration of next-generation security gateways with artificial intelligence technology from SentinelOne to identify and suppress zero-day cyber attacks rapidly. Progent also provides the assistance of experienced ransomware recovery engineers with the skills and perseverance to restore a compromised network as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Recovery Support Services
Following a crypto-ransomware event, paying the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that cyber criminals will respond with the codes to decrypt any of your information. Kaspersky ascertained that 17% of ransomware victims never restored their files after having sent off the ransom, resulting in more losses. The risk is also expensive. Ryuk ransoms are often several hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can be in the millions. The fallback is to piece back together the vital elements of your IT environment. Without the availability of essential data backups, this requires a wide complement of IT skills, professional team management, and the capability to work non-stop until the task is done.

For twenty years, Progent has offered professional Information Technology services for companies throughout the United States and has earned Microsoft's Partnership certification status in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's group of subject matter experts (SMEs) includes engineers who have earned top industry certifications in key technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity experts have garnered internationally-renowned industry certifications including CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, ISACA CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has expertise in accounting and ERP application software. This breadth of experience provides Progent the ability to efficiently identify necessary systems and organize the surviving parts of your IT system following a ransomware attack and assemble them into a functioning network.

Progent's security team has state-of-the-art project management tools to coordinate the sophisticated restoration process. Progent understands the importance of working rapidly and in unison with a client's management and Information Technology team members to prioritize tasks and to put essential services back on line as fast as humanly possible.

Business Case Study: A Successful Ransomware Incident Recovery
A small business contacted Progent after their company was brought down by Ryuk ransomware virus. Ryuk is believed to have been deployed by Northern Korean government sponsored cybercriminals, suspected of adopting approaches leaked from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ryuk goes after specific organizations with little room for operational disruption and is among the most profitable examples of ransomware. Headline targets include Data Resolution, a California-based data warehousing and cloud computing firm, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's client is a regional manufacturing company located in the Chicago metro area with about 500 staff members. The Ryuk intrusion had disabled all business operations and manufacturing capabilities. The majority of the client's data backups had been on-line at the time of the attack and were encrypted. The client considered paying the ransom (in excess of two hundred thousand dollars) and praying for the best, but ultimately called Progent.

Progent worked hand in hand the client to quickly understand and prioritize the essential systems that had to be restored in order to resume departmental functions:

• Microsoft Active Directory
• Microsoft Exchange
• Financials/MRP

Within two days, Progent was able to recover Active Directory to its pre-attack state. Progent then initiated rebuilding and storage recovery on critical systems. All Microsoft Exchange Server ties and configuration information were usable, which accelerated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was also able to locate intact OST data files (Outlook Offline Folder Files) on user workstations to recover mail information. A not too old off-line backup of the businesses financials/MRP systems made them able to return these vital services back servicing users. Although major work remained to recover fully from the Ryuk event, the most important systems were restored rapidly:

During the following couple of weeks key milestones in the recovery process were accomplished in close cooperation between Progent consultants and the client:

• In-house web applications were returned to operation with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Exchange Server with over 4 million historical emails was brought on-line and available for users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoices/Accounts Payable/AR/Inventory Control modules were completely recovered.
• A new Palo Alto Networks 850 firewall was set up.
• Most of the user desktops and notebooks were fully operational.

Conclusion
A probable business catastrophe was averted with top-tier professionals, a broad array of subject matter expertise, and close teamwork. Although upon completion of forensics the crypto-ransomware virus attack detailed here could have been identified and prevented with modern security solutions and NIST Cybersecurity Framework or ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, team education, and well thought out security procedures for information protection and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the fact is that government-sponsored cybercriminals from China, Russia, North Korea and elsewhere are tireless and represent an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a crypto-ransomware penetration, feel confident that Progent's roster of professionals has a proven track record in ransomware virus defense, mitigation, and file restoration.

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

Additional Crypto-Ransomware Protection Services Available from Progent
Progent offers companies in Rockville a variety of remote monitoring and security evaluation services to help you to minimize the threat from ransomware. These services utilize modern artificial intelligence capability to uncover zero-day variants 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 businesses to utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solutions to create leading-edge network resilience. Progent handles the necessary monitoring and maintenance for you, so your system expands readily without becoming an obstacle. For an affordable and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's full-service IT group can be your dependable technology safety net. Basic packages include remote monitoring and management (RMM), security, monthly patching, and reporting. As your requirements grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed options such as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup and restore, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), penetration testing, or WiFi management.

• ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring and Management
  ProSight LAN Watch is Progent's server and desktop monitoring managed service that incorporates advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology to help keep your IT system operating efficiently by tracking the health of critical computers that drive your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alarm is sent immediately to your specified IT personnel and your Progent consultant so that any looming problems can be resolved before they can disrupt your network. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software delivers a unified, cloud-driven solution for monitoring and managing your network, server, and desktop devices by offering tools for streamlining common time-consuming jobs. These include health checking, update management, automated repairs, endpoint deployment, backup and recovery, anti-virus protection, remote access, standard and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint profile reports, and troubleshooting support. When ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious problem, it sends an alarm to your specified IT management personnel and your Progent technical consultant so that emerging problems can be fixed before they impact your network. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop monitoring consulting.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Infrastructure Management
  ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for smaller businesses to diagram, monitor, optimize and debug their networking appliances such as routers and switches, firewalls, and access points as well as servers, printers, endpoints and other networked devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art RMM technology, WAN Watch ensures that network diagrams are kept current, copies and displays the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and generates alerts when problems are discovered. By automating time-consuming management activities, ProSight WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary tasks like making network diagrams, expanding your network, locating devices that require critical updates, or resolving performance bottlenecks. Find out more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure monitoring and management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: Real-time and In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is a growing line of real-time reporting tools designed to integrate with the industry's top ticketing and network monitoring platforms 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 like spotty support follow-through or endpoints with out-of-date AVs. By exposing ticketing or network health problems clearly and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting improves productivity, reduces management hassle, and saves money. For details, visit ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.

• ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS): 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 offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS products automate and track your backup processes and allow non-disruptive backup and rapid recovery of important files, applications, images, plus Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. ProSight DPS helps you avoid data loss caused by equipment failures, natural calamities, fire, malware such as ransomware, user mistakes, ill-intentioned insiders, or application glitches. Managed services in the ProSight Data Protection Services product family include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda dedicated hardware, and ProSight MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent expert can assist you to determine which of these 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 uses the infrastructure of leading information security vendors to deliver centralized management and world-class protection for your email traffic. The powerful structure of Email Guard managed service combines a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway appliance to provide advanced defense against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks, and other email-borne threats. The Cloud Protection Layer acts as a preliminary barricade and blocks the vast majority of unwanted email from making it to your security perimeter. This reduces your vulnerability to inbound attacks and saves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's on-premises gateway device adds a deeper layer of analysis for incoming email. For outgoing email, the on-premises gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite security gateway can also help Exchange Server to track and safeguard internal email traffic that originates and ends within your corporate firewall. For more information, visit Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Protected Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo MFA services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a secured application and enter your password you are asked to verify your identity on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this second means of authentication including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate several validation devices. For details about Duo identity validation services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Service Desk: Call Center Managed Services
  Progent's Call Desk services enable your IT staff to outsource Support Desk services to Progent or split responsibilities for support services seamlessly between your internal network support team and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT service engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Service Desk offers a seamless supplement to your in-house support organization. End user access to the Help Desk, provision of support, escalation, trouble ticket creation and updates, performance metrics, and management of the support database are cohesive whether issues are resolved by your in-house IT support organization, by Progent, or both. Read more about Progent's outsourced/shared Call Center services.

• Progent Active Defense Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Detection and Remediation
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that utilizes next generation behavior-based analysis technology to defend endpoints and physical and virtual servers against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily get by traditional signature-matching AV products. Progent ASM services safeguard local and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to address the complete threat progression including filtering, infiltration detection, mitigation, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Key features include one-click rollback with Windows VSS and real-time network-wide immunization against new threats. 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 allows you to capture, update, find and safeguard data related to your IT infrastructure, procedures, applications, and services. You can instantly find passwords or serial numbers and be alerted about upcoming expirations of SSL certificates or domains. By updating and managing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can eliminate as much as half of time spent searching for critical information about your network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a common repository for storing and sharing all documents related to managing your network infrastructure such as standard operating procedures (SOPs) and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for collecting and relating IT information. Whether you're making improvements, doing regular maintenance, or reacting to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management gets you the information you require as soon as you need it. Learn more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent's Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's managed services for software and firmware patch management provide businesses of any size a versatile and affordable alternative for assessing, validating, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your dynamic IT network. Besides maximizing the security and reliability of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services permit your IT team to concentrate on line-of-business initiatives and activities that derive maximum business value from your information network. Learn more about Progent's software/firmware update management support services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted VMs at Progent's Tier III Data Center
  With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small organization can have its key servers and apps hosted in a protected Tier III data center on a high-performance virtual machine host set up and maintained by Progent's network support experts. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client owns the data, the OS platforms, and the applications. Since the environment is virtualized, it can be moved easily to a different hardware environment without a lengthy and technically risky reinstallation procedure. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, your business is not locked into one hosting service. 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 service that utilizes SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based analysis technology to guard physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware attacks like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely evade legacy signature-based anti-virus products. ProSight ASM protects on-premises and cloud resources and provides a single platform to manage the entire threat lifecycle including protection, identification, containment, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Key capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic system-wide immunization against new attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Read more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Physical and Virtual Endpoint Security and Exchange Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) managed services offer ultra-affordable multi-layer security for physical servers and virtual machines, desktops, mobile devices, and Exchange email. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and advanced machine learning for continuously monitoring and reacting to cyber threats from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP delivers two-way firewall protection, penetration alarms, device control, and web filtering through cutting-edge tools incorporated within one agent accessible from a unified control. Progent's security and virtualization experts can assist your business to design and configure a ProSight ESP environment that addresses your organization's specific requirements and that allows you achieve and demonstrate compliance with legal and industry information security standards. Progent will assist you specify and implement policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your network and respond to alarms that call for urgent action. Progent can also help your company to set up and test a backup and restore solution like ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover quickly from a destructive cyber attack such as ransomware. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Exchange filtering.