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Ransomware : Your Feared IT Catastrophe
Crypto-Ransomware has become a modern cyber pandemic that represents an extinction-level danger for businesses vulnerable to an assault. Versions of crypto-ransomware such as Reveton, Fusob, Bad Rabbit, Syskey and MongoLock cryptoworms have been around for many years and continue to inflict havoc. Newer variants of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Snatch or Nephilim, as well as daily unnamed malware, not only do encryption of on-line data but also infect many configured system protection. Information synchronized to cloud environments can also be held hostage. In a poorly architected system, it can make any recovery useless and effectively knocks the entire system back to zero.

Getting back programs and information after a ransomware intrusion becomes a race against time as the targeted organization tries its best to contain, remove the virus, and restore mission-critical operations. Because ransomware needs time to replicate, attacks are often launched on weekends, when attacks are likely to take more time to detect. This multiplies the difficulty of rapidly marshalling and coordinating a capable mitigation team.

Progent has an assortment of solutions for securing enterprises from ransomware attacks. These include team member training to become familiar with and avoid phishing scams, ProSight Active Security Monitoring for remote monitoring and management, along with setup and configuration of the latest generation security appliances with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to identify and suppress day-zero threats automatically. Progent in addition can provide the services of veteran crypto-ransomware recovery consultants with the track record and commitment to re-deploy a breached system as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Services
Soon after a ransomware invasion, sending the ransom demands in cryptocurrency does not ensure that cyber hackers will return the needed keys to decipher any of your files. Kaspersky Labs ascertained that 17% of ransomware victims never recovered their files even after having paid the ransom, resulting in more losses. The risk is also expensive. Ryuk ransoms are typically several hundred thousand dollars. For larger organizations, the ransom can reach millions. The other path is to piece back together the mission-critical parts of your IT environment. Without the availability of essential information backups, this requires a broad complement of IT skills, top notch project management, and the capability to work 24x7 until the job is completed.

For decades, Progent has provided professional IT services for companies across the United States and has earned Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's pool of subject matter experts includes professionals who have earned advanced industry certifications in foundation technologies including Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's cyber security specialists have earned internationally-recognized industry certifications including CISM, CISSP, ISACA CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has expertise with financial management and ERP application software. This breadth of expertise gives Progent the skills to rapidly understand important systems and integrate the surviving parts of your Information Technology environment after a ransomware penetration and configure them into an operational network.

Progent's recovery group deploys best of breed project management applications to orchestrate the sophisticated restoration process. Progent understands the importance of acting quickly and in concert with a client's management and IT team members to assign priority to tasks and to get key systems back online as soon as humanly possible.

Client Case Study: A Successful Crypto-Ransomware Penetration Response
A client sought out Progent after their network was brought down by the Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is believed to have been launched by Northern Korean government sponsored hackers, suspected of adopting techniques exposed from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ryuk targets specific businesses with limited ability to sustain disruption and is among the most lucrative versions of crypto-ransomware. Major targets include Data Resolution, a California-based information warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's client is a small manufacturer based in the Chicago metro area with around 500 employees. The Ryuk event had disabled all essential operations and manufacturing processes. Most of the client's data protection had been on-line at the start of the attack and were eventually encrypted. The client was pursuing financing for paying the ransom (more than $200K) and hoping for good luck, but in the end reached out to Progent.

Progent worked together with the customer to rapidly determine and prioritize the mission critical applications that had to be addressed to make it possible to continue company operations:

• Active Directory
• Email
• Accounting and Manufacturing Software

Within two days, Progent was able to restore Active Directory services to its pre-attack state. Progent then completed setup and hard drive recovery on critical applications. All Exchange Server ties and attributes were intact, which greatly helped the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was able to collect intact OST files (Microsoft Outlook Off-Line Folder Files) on team PCs in order to recover email messages. A not too old offline backup of the businesses accounting/MRP software made it possible to recover these essential programs back on-line. Although a large amount of work was left to recover completely from the Ryuk event, critical services were restored rapidly:

During the following couple of weeks critical milestones in the restoration process were achieved through tight cooperation between Progent engineers and the client:

• Self-hosted web applications were brought back up with no loss of data.
• The MailStore Exchange Server exceeding four million archived messages was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Orders/Invoices/AP/AR/Inventory Control capabilities were 100% restored.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was installed and configured.
• Ninety percent of the user desktops were fully operational.

Conclusion
A potential business-killing disaster was evaded with dedicated professionals, a broad range of subject matter expertise, and tight teamwork. Although upon completion of forensics the crypto-ransomware attack detailed here should have been blocked with modern cyber security systems and recognized best practices, team training, and appropriate security procedures for information backup and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the fact is that government-sponsored criminal cyber gangs from China, North Korea and elsewhere are tireless and are an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a ransomware penetration, feel confident that Progent's roster of experts has extensive experience in crypto-ransomware virus defense, cleanup, and data restoration.

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

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Available from Progent
Progent offers companies in Santa Cruz a variety of online monitoring and security assessment services designed to help you to reduce the threat from ransomware. These services utilize modern AI technology to detect zero-day strains of crypto-ransomware that can escape detection by legacy signature-based security products.

• ProSight Managed Service Plans: for Small to Mid-size Businesses
  Progent's ProSight Managed IT Service Packages make it practical for small and mid-size companies to deploy Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology to create advanced IT resilience. Progent takes care of the daily monitoring and management for you, so your network expands readily without becoming an obstacle. For an affordable and predictable monthly price, Progent's experienced IT team can be your dependable technology safety net. Basic packages include RMM, security, monthly patching, and reporting. As your requirements grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-in-class options such 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 remote monitoring service that uses advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology to help keep your network operating efficiently by checking the state of critical assets that drive your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alarm is sent automatically to your designated IT personnel and your Progent engineering consultant so that all potential problems can be resolved before they have a chance to impact productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM Solution for Networks, Servers, and Workstations
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a centralized, cloud-based solution for monitoring and managing your client-server infrastructure by offering an environment for performing common tedious tasks. These can include health checking, update management, automated remediation, endpoint deployment, backup and recovery, A/V defense, secure remote access, built-in and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint status reporting, and debugging help. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM spots a serious issue, it transmits an alert to your specified IT staff and your Progent consultant so that potential problems can be fixed 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: Infrastructure Remote Monitoring and Management
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for smaller organizations to diagram, track, enhance and troubleshoot their connectivity hardware like switches, firewalls, and load balancers as well as servers, printers, client computers and other devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art RMM technology, WAN Watch makes sure that infrastructure topology maps are always updated, captures and displays the configuration of virtually all devices connected to your network, monitors performance, and sends notices when issues are detected. By automating tedious network management processes, WAN Watch can cut hours off ordinary chores such as making network diagrams, reconfiguring your network, locating appliances that need important software patches, or resolving 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 real-time and in-depth management reporting utilities created to work with the industry's top ticketing and remote network monitoring applications such as 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 spotty support follow-up or machines with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health concerns clearly 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): Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has partnered with leading backup software companies to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a portfolio of offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS products manage and monitor your backup operations and allow transparent backup and rapid restoration of important files, applications, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets your business recover from data loss resulting from hardware failures, natural disasters, fire, malware such as ransomware, user error, malicious insiders, or application bugs. Managed backup services available in the ProSight Data Protection Services product family include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup based on Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight DPS MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent consultant can help 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 service that uses the technology of top information security vendors to deliver web-based management and comprehensive security for your inbound and outbound email. The powerful structure of Progent's Email Guard combines cloud-based filtering with a local gateway appliance to provide advanced protection against spam, viruses, Dos Attacks, DHAs, and other email-based malware. The cloud filter acts as a preliminary barricade and keeps most threats from making it to your security perimeter. This decreases your vulnerability to external attacks and conserves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway appliance adds a deeper level of analysis for incoming email. For outbound email, the on-premises security gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam protection, policy-based Data Loss Prevention, and email encryption. The onsite security gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to track and protect internal email traffic that originates and ends within your corporate firewall. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo MFA service plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you sign 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 different ("out-of-band") network channel. A broad range of out-of-band devices can be used as this added means of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You may designate several validation devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Call Center: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Support Desk services enable your information technology staff to outsource Support Desk services to Progent or split activity for support services seamlessly between your in-house support resources and Progent's nationwide pool of certified IT service technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Help Desk Service offers a smooth extension of your in-house support organization. Client access to the Service Desk, provision of support, escalation, trouble ticket creation and updates, efficiency metrics, and maintenance of the service database are consistent regardless of whether incidents are resolved by your core IT support organization, by Progent's team, or both. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Service Center services.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Identification and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Defense Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection managed service that incorporates cutting edge behavior analysis technology to guard endpoints and physical and virtual servers against new malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade legacy signature-matching AV tools. Progent ASM services protect local and cloud resources and provides a single platform to manage the complete threat lifecycle including blocking, identification, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Key capabilities include one-click rollback with Windows VSS and automatic network-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Read more about Progent's ransomware protection and recovery services.

• ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Documentation Management
  ProSight IT Asset Management service is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that allows you to create, update, find and safeguard data about your network infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or IP addresses and be warned about upcoming expirations of SSLs or domains. By cleaning up and organizing your IT documentation, you can save as much as 50% of time wasted looking for critical information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a centralized location for holding and collaborating on all documents required for managing your business network like standard operating procedures (SOPs) and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports a high level of automation for gathering and relating IT information. Whether you're making enhancements, doing maintenance, or responding to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the information you need as soon as you need it. Learn more about 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 all sizes a versatile and affordable solution for assessing, testing, scheduling, applying, and tracking software and firmware updates to your dynamic information network. Besides optimizing the protection and functionality of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services permit your in-house IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives and activities that derive the highest business value from your network. Find out more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small organization can have its critical servers and applications hosted in a secure fault tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual host configured and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. Under the ProSight Virtual Hosting service model, the client owns the data, the OS software, and the applications. Because the environment is virtualized, it can be moved easily to an alternate hosting solution without requiring a time-consuming and difficult configuration process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into one hosting service. Find out more details about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

• ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection solution that utilizes SentinelOne's next generation behavior-based machine learning tools to guard physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware attacks such as ransomware and email phishing, which easily get by traditional signature-based anti-virus tools. ProSight ASM protects on-premises and cloud resources and provides a unified platform to manage the complete malware attack progression including protection, detection, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Key capabilities include one-click rollback with Windows VSS and real-time network-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware recovery.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Physical and Virtual Endpoint Security and Exchange Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services offer affordable in-depth security for physical servers and VMs, workstations, mobile devices, and Microsoft Exchange. ProSight ESP uses contextual security and advanced machine learning for continuously monitoring and reacting to cyber threats from all vectors. ProSight ESP offers firewall protection, penetration alarms, device control, and web filtering via leading-edge tools packaged within a single agent managed from a single console. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can assist your business to design and implement a ProSight ESP deployment that meets your company's unique requirements and that allows you achieve and demonstrate compliance with government and industry information protection standards. Progent will help you specify and implement security policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and respond to alarms that call for immediate action. Progent's consultants can also assist your company to set up and test a backup and disaster recovery system like ProSight Data Protection Services so you can get back in business quickly from a destructive cyber attack like ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint security and Exchange filtering.