24-Hour Newark Critical Crypto
Computer Virus Damage Assessment and Repair Services

Ransomware : Your Feared Information Technology Catastrophe
Ransomware has become a modern cyber pandemic that poses an existential danger for organizations vulnerable to an assault. Versions of ransomware like the Reveton, CryptoWall, Bad Rabbit, Syskey and MongoLock cryptoworms have been replicating for many years and still inflict destruction. Recent variants of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, LockBit or Nephilim, along with daily unnamed viruses, not only do encryption of on-line files but also infect any accessible system restores and backups. Information synchronized to cloud environments can also be held hostage. In a poorly architected system, it can make any recovery hopeless and basically knocks the entire system back to square one.

Getting back online programs and information following a ransomware intrusion becomes a sprint against the clock as the victim struggles to contain the damage, cleanup the virus, and resume mission-critical activity. Since ransomware needs time to move laterally, assaults are usually launched during nights and weekends, when successful attacks may take more time to detect. This multiplies the difficulty of quickly marshalling and orchestrating a capable response team.

Progent provides an assortment of solutions for protecting organizations from ransomware attacks. These include staff training to become familiar with and avoid phishing exploits, ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) for remote monitoring and management, along with deployment of the latest generation security appliances with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to identify and disable zero-day cyber attacks automatically. Progent in addition can provide the assistance of seasoned crypto-ransomware recovery professionals with the track record and perseverance to re-deploy a compromised network as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Help
Soon after a crypto-ransomware event, sending the ransom in cryptocurrency does not guarantee that cyber hackers will return the keys to unencrypt all your files. Kaspersky ascertained that seventeen percent of crypto-ransomware victims never restored their information after having sent off the ransom, resulting in increased losses. The risk is also costly. Ryuk ransoms are typically a few hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can be in the millions of dollars. The fallback is to setup from scratch the essential parts of your IT environment. Without access to full information backups, this calls for a broad range of skill sets, top notch team management, and the capability to work non-stop until the task is complete.

For decades, Progent has made available certified expert IT services for companies throughout the US and has achieved Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's team of subject matter experts includes consultants who have attained top industry certifications in important technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's cyber security experts have earned internationally-renowned industry certifications including CISA, CISSP, CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Refer to Progent's certifications). Progent also has expertise with financial systems and ERP software solutions. This breadth of experience affords Progent the ability to knowledgably identify necessary systems and integrate the remaining parts of your network system following a ransomware event and assemble them into a functioning network.

Progent's security team uses powerful project management applications to coordinate the complex restoration process. Progent appreciates the urgency of acting quickly and in concert with a client's management and Information Technology team members to prioritize tasks and to put key systems back online as soon as possible.

Client Story: A Successful Ransomware Virus Recovery
A customer engaged Progent after their company was attacked by Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is thought to have been created by Northern Korean state sponsored cybercriminals, suspected of adopting approaches exposed from the United States National Security Agency. Ryuk attacks specific organizations with little or no tolerance for operational disruption and is among the most profitable incarnations of ransomware viruses. Headline organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based info warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a small manufacturer located in Chicago and has about 500 employees. The Ryuk attack had paralyzed all essential operations and manufacturing processes. Most of the client's information backups had been on-line at the beginning of the intrusion and were damaged. The client considered paying the ransom demand (in excess of $200,000) and wishfully thinking for the best, but ultimately brought in Progent.

Progent worked with the client to quickly understand and assign priority to the critical areas that needed to be restored to make it possible to continue company operations:

• Windows Active Directory
• Exchange Server
• Accounting and Manufacturing Software

In less than 2 days, Progent was able to restore Active Directory to its pre-attack state. Progent then completed reinstallations and hard drive recovery on essential systems. All Microsoft Exchange Server schema and configuration information were intact, which accelerated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was also able to locate local OST data files (Microsoft Outlook Offline Folder Files) on various workstations in order to recover email data. A recent offline backup of the client's financials/MRP software made them able to recover these vital programs back online. Although a lot of work remained to recover completely from the Ryuk damage, the most important services were recovered rapidly:

During the following few weeks important milestones in the recovery process were made through close cooperation between Progent consultants and the customer:

• Self-hosted web applications were brought back up without losing any data.
• The MailStore Microsoft Exchange Server containing more than 4 million archived emails was restored to operations and available for users.
• CRM/Orders/Invoices/Accounts Payable (AP)/Accounts Receivables (AR)/Inventory modules were fully functional.
• A new Palo Alto Networks 850 security appliance was installed.
• Ninety percent of the desktop computers were back into operation.

Conclusion
A likely business disaster was dodged with results-oriented professionals, a wide spectrum of knowledge, and tight teamwork. Although in retrospect the ransomware incident described here should have been disabled with advanced cyber security solutions and ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, staff training, and well thought out security procedures for information backup and keeping systems up to date with security patches, the reality is that state-sponsored cyber criminals from China, North Korea and elsewhere are tireless and represent an ongoing threat. If you do get hit by a ransomware incident, remember that Progent's roster of experts has substantial experience in ransomware virus blocking, cleanup, and information systems recovery.

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

Additional Crypto-Ransomware Protection Services Available from Progent
Progent offers companies in Newark a portfolio of remote monitoring and security evaluation services to help you to reduce your vulnerability to ransomware. These services incorporate modern machine learning technology to uncover zero-day variants of crypto-ransomware that are able to escape detection by traditional signature-based anti-virus solutions.

• 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 businesses to utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology to achieve leading-edge IT resilience. Progent takes care of the daily monitoring and maintenance for you, so your network scales readily without holding you back. For a low and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's full-service IT group can be your dependable technology safety net. Basic plans include remote monitoring and management, cybersecurity, monthly patching, and reporting. As your needs grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-in-class options like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, 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 monitoring service that incorporates state-of-the-art remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology 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 detects an issue, an alert is sent immediately to your specified IT personnel and your Progent consultant so all looming issues can be resolved before they can disrupt productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM Solution for Networks, Servers, and Desktops
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a unified, cloud-driven platform for monitoring and managing your client-server infrastructure by providing an environment for streamlining common tedious tasks. These include health monitoring, update management, automated remediation, endpoint setup, backup and restore, anti-virus protection, secure remote access, standard and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint profile reporting, and troubleshooting support. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM uncovers a serious incident, it transmits an alert to your specified IT personnel and your Progent consultant so potential issues 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 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 organizations to map, monitor, reconfigure and debug their networking hardware such as switches, firewalls, and load balancers plus servers, printers, client computers and other networked devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art RMM technology, ProSight WAN Watch makes sure that network diagrams are kept updated, copies and displays the configuration of virtually all devices connected to your network, tracks performance, and sends notices when problems are detected. By automating complex network management activities, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off ordinary tasks like network mapping, reconfiguring your network, locating appliances that need important updates, or isolating performance bottlenecks. Learn more details about ProSight WAN Watch infrastructure monitoring and management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is a growing family of in-depth management reporting plug-ins designed to integrate with the industry's top ticketing and remote network monitoring programs such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and features color coding to highlight and contextualize key issues such as spotty support follow-up or machines with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health problems concisely and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting improves network value, lowers management overhead, and saves money. For more information, visit ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with advanced backup software companies to produce ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a portfolio of subscription-based offerings that provide backup-as-a-service (BaaS). ProSight DPS services automate and monitor your data backup operations and allow transparent backup and rapid recovery of vital files/folders, apps, images, and virtual machines. ProSight DPS helps you avoid data loss resulting from hardware breakdown, natural disasters, fire, malware such as ransomware, human error, ill-intentioned employees, or application glitches. Managed services in the ProSight Data Protection Services portfolio include ProSight Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup based on Barracuda purpose-built hardware, and ProSight MSP360 Hybrid Backup. Your Progent service representative can help you to identify which of these fully managed 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 provide centralized management and world-class security for your email traffic. The powerful structure of Progent's Email Guard combines a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway appliance to provide complete protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-borne malware. The cloud filter acts as a first line of defense and keeps the vast majority of threats from making it to your network firewall. This decreases your exposure to inbound threats and saves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite gateway device adds a further level of inspection for incoming email. For outbound email, the on-premises gateway provides AV and anti-spam filtering, protection against data leaks, and email encryption. The onsite security gateway can also help Microsoft Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your security perimeter. For more details, see ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: ID Confirmation, Endpoint Policy Enforcement, and Secure Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo authentication services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to verify who you are via a device that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of devices can be utilized as this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register multiple verification devices. For more information about ProSight Duo identity validation services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Service Center: Support Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Help Center managed services allow your information technology staff to offload Call Center services to Progent or divide responsibilities for Help Desk services seamlessly between your internal support team and Progent's extensive roster of IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Co-managed Service Desk provides a seamless supplement to your internal IT support resources. Client access to the Help Desk, provision of technical assistance, issue escalation, ticket creation and updates, efficiency metrics, and management of the support database are cohesive whether incidents are taken care of by your in-house support group, by Progent's team, or both. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Help Desk services.

• Progent Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Identification and Cleanup
  Progent's Active Defense Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates cutting edge behavior-based analysis technology to guard endpoint devices and physical and virtual servers against new malware attacks such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely evade traditional signature-matching anti-virus tools. Progent ASM services protect on-premises and cloud resources and provides a unified platform to manage the complete malware attack lifecycle including blocking, detection, containment, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Key capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows VSS and automatic system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Learn 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 makes it easy to create, maintain, retrieve and protect data related to your network infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can quickly locate passwords or IP addresses and be warned automatically about upcoming expirations of SSLs ,domains or warranties. By cleaning up and organizing your network documentation, you can eliminate as much as 50% of time spent searching for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a common location for storing and collaborating on all documents related to managing your business network like recommended procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports advanced automation for collecting and relating IT data. Whether you're planning improvements, doing maintenance, or responding to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the knowledge you require the instant you need it. Find out more about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Patch Management: Software/Firmware Update Management Services
  Progent's support services for patch management provide organizations of all sizes a flexible and affordable alternative for evaluating, testing, scheduling, implementing, and documenting software and firmware updates to your dynamic IT network. In addition to optimizing the protection and reliability of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services permit your in-house IT staff to focus on line-of-business projects and activities that derive the highest business value from your information network. Find out more about Progent's software/firmware update 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 organization can have its key servers and applications hosted in a secure Tier III data center on a fast virtual machine host set up and maintained by Progent's network support experts. With the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the client retains ownership of the data, the operating system platforms, and the applications. Because the environment is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to a different hardware solution without a lengthy and technically risky reinstallation procedure. 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
  ProSight Active Security Monitoring is an endpoint protection (EPP) solution that incorporates SentinelOne's cutting edge behavior-based machine learning tools to defend physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware assaults such as ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily evade legacy signature-based anti-virus products. ProSight ASM protects local and cloud-based resources and offers a single platform to address the complete threat progression including blocking, infiltration detection, mitigation, cleanup, and post-attack forensics. Key features include one-click rollback with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic system-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) endpoint protection and ransomware recovery.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection: Endpoint Security and Microsoft Exchange Email Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services offer economical in-depth protection for physical and virtual servers, workstations, smartphones, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP utilizes contextual security and advanced machine learning for round-the-clock monitoring and reacting to cyber assaults from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP offers firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint management, and web filtering via cutting-edge tools incorporated within one agent accessible from a single console. Progent's security and virtualization experts can help your business to design and implement a ProSight ESP deployment that addresses your company's unique needs and that allows you achieve and demonstrate compliance with legal and industry data protection standards. Progent will assist you define and implement security policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alarms that require urgent attention. Progent can also help your company to install and test a backup and restore solution like ProSight Data Protection Services so you can recover rapidly from a potentially disastrous security attack like ransomware. Find out more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint protection and Microsoft Exchange filtering.