Washington 24/7/365 Emergency Crypto-Ransomware
Infection Assessment and Removal Consulting

Ransomware : Your Crippling Information Technology Nightmare
Ransomware has become a modern cyberplague that poses an extinction-level danger for organizations unprepared for an attack. Multiple generations of ransomware like the Dharma, CryptoWall, Locky, NotPetya and MongoLock cryptoworms have been out in the wild for a long time and still inflict damage. Modern versions of crypto-ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, DopplePaymer, Snatch or Nephilim, plus more as yet unnamed newcomers, not only do encryption of on-line information but also infect any available system restores and backups. Files replicated to the cloud can also be corrupted. In a poorly architected system, it can make any restoration useless and effectively knocks the entire system back to zero.

Retrieving programs and information following a crypto-ransomware attack becomes a race against time as the victim struggles to stop lateral movement, cleanup the ransomware, and restore enterprise-critical operations. Because crypto-ransomware takes time to spread, penetrations are frequently sprung on weekends, when attacks are likely to take more time to identify. This compounds the difficulty of quickly assembling and organizing a capable response team.

Progent has a range of solutions for securing enterprises from ransomware attacks. Among these are team member education to become familiar with and avoid phishing attempts, ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) for remote monitoring and management, along with deployment of the latest generation security solutions with AI capabilities from SentinelOne to identify and suppress new threats intelligently. Progent also offers the services of experienced ransomware recovery consultants with the talent and perseverance to rebuild a compromised network as soon as possible.

Progent's Ransomware Restoration Support Services
Subsequent to a ransomware attack, even paying the ransom in cryptocurrency does not provide any assurance that cyber hackers will provide the needed keys to decrypt any or all of your data. Kaspersky Labs ascertained that seventeen percent of crypto-ransomware victims never recovered their files after having paid the ransom, resulting in more losses. The risk is also costly. Ryuk ransoms are typically several hundred thousand dollars. For larger enterprises, the ransom can reach millions of dollars. The alternative is to setup from scratch the vital elements of your IT environment. Without access to full information backups, this calls for a broad range of skill sets, top notch project management, and the willingness to work continuously until the recovery project is done.

For twenty years, Progent has provided professional Information Technology services for companies throughout the US and has earned Microsoft's Partnership certification in the Datacenter and Cloud Productivity competencies. Progent's group of subject matter experts includes consultants who have earned high-level certifications in key technologies like Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, and popular distributions of Linux. Progent's cybersecurity engineers have garnered internationally-recognized industry certifications including CISM, CISSP, CRISC, SANS GIAC, and CMMC 2.0. (Visit Progent's certifications). Progent in addition has experience with accounting and ERP applications. This breadth of experience provides Progent the skills to knowledgably identify necessary systems and organize the remaining pieces of your IT system after a ransomware event and configure them into a functioning system.

Progent's ransomware team of experts utilizes best of breed project management applications to coordinate the sophisticated recovery process. Progent knows the urgency of working rapidly and in unison with a client's management and IT resources to assign priority to tasks and to put essential systems back online as fast as humanly possible.

Customer Case Study: A Successful Crypto-Ransomware Incident Response
A small business escalated to Progent after their network system was crashed by the Ryuk ransomware. Ryuk is generally considered to have been deployed by North Korean government sponsored criminal gangs, possibly using techniques exposed from the U.S. National Security Agency. Ryuk seeks specific businesses with little or no tolerance for disruption and is one of the most lucrative iterations of ransomware malware. Major organizations include Data Resolution, a California-based information warehousing and cloud computing company, and the Chicago Tribune. Progent's customer is a regional manufacturing company based in Chicago with about 500 staff members. The Ryuk event had disabled all company operations and manufacturing capabilities. The majority of the client's information backups had been on-line at the start of the attack and were encrypted. The client was pursuing financing for paying the ransom (in excess of two hundred thousand dollars) and hoping for the best, but ultimately reached out to Progent.

Progent worked with the customer to rapidly identify and prioritize the key areas that needed to be addressed to make it possible to continue departmental functions:

• Active Directory
• Exchange Server
• Financials/MRP

In less than 48 hours, Progent was able to re-build Active Directory to its pre-intrusion state. Progent then accomplished reinstallations and storage recovery of needed servers. All Exchange Server schema and attributes were intact, which facilitated the rebuild of Exchange. Progent was also able to collect non-encrypted OST files (Outlook Offline Data Files) on team workstations and laptops in order to recover email information. A recent offline backup of the businesses financials/MRP software made them able to restore these required applications back on-line. Although a lot of work needed to be completed to recover completely from the Ryuk damage, the most important services were restored rapidly:

Throughout the following month important milestones in the restoration process were achieved in tight collaboration between Progent engineers and the client:

• Internal web applications were restored with no loss of information.
• The MailStore Microsoft Exchange Server exceeding four million historical emails was spun up and accessible to users.
• CRM/Product Ordering/Invoices/Accounts Payable (AP)/Accounts Receivables (AR)/Inventory modules were fully recovered.
• A new Palo Alto 850 firewall was set up and programmed.
• 90% of the user PCs were fully operational.

Conclusion
A possible business catastrophe was dodged due to hard-working professionals, a wide range of knowledge, and close collaboration. Although upon completion of forensics the ransomware virus penetration detailed here could have been disabled with modern cyber security technology and ISO/IEC 27001 best practices, team education, and well designed incident response procedures for information backup and proper patching controls, the fact is that state-sponsored hackers from China, North Korea and elsewhere are relentless and are not going away. If you do get hit by a ransomware penetration, feel confident that Progent's roster of experts has extensive experience in ransomware virus defense, remediation, and data restoration.

To read or download a PDF version of this customer story, please click:
Progent's Ryuk Recovery Case Study Datasheet. (PDF - 282 KB)

Additional Ransomware Protection Services Available from Progent
Progent offers companies in Washington a variety of online monitoring and security assessment services to help you to minimize the threat from crypto-ransomware. These services include next-generation artificial intelligence capability to uncover new strains of ransomware that can escape detection by legacy signature-based anti-virus 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 utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology to create advanced IT resilience. Progent handles the daily monitoring and maintenance for you, so your system expands easily without holding you back. For a low and predictable monthly price, Progent's full-service IT team can be your dependable technology safety net. Entry-level packages include remote monitoring and management, security, monthly patching, and reporting. As your requirements expand, you can add low-cost subscriptions to advanced solutions like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), 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 managed service that uses advanced remote monitoring and management technology to help keep your network operating efficiently by checking the state of critical assets that power your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch detects an issue, an alarm is transmitted immediately to your designated IT personnel and your assigned Progent consultant so that all potential problems can be addressed before they can impact productivity. Find out more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Unified RMM Solution for Networks, Servers, and Workstations
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a unified, cloud-driven solution for managing your client-server infrastructure by offering an environment for performing common time-consuming jobs. These can include health monitoring, patch management, automated remediation, endpoint configuration, backup and recovery, anti-virus defense, secure remote access, built-in and custom scripts, asset inventory, endpoint status reports, and debugging help. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM identifies a serious incident, it sends an alarm to your designated IT staff and your Progent consultant so 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
  Progent's ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure management service that makes it simple and affordable for smaller organizations to map, track, optimize and debug their networking hardware like switches, firewalls, and wireless controllers plus servers, endpoints and other devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, ProSight WAN Watch ensures that network maps are kept updated, copies and manages the configuration information of almost all devices on your network, tracks performance, and sends notices when potential issues are detected. By automating complex network management activities, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off ordinary chores like network mapping, reconfiguring your network, locating devices that need important updates, or resolving 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 a growing family of real-time and in-depth reporting utilities designed to work with the leading ticketing and remote network monitoring programs such as ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to highlight and contextualize key issues like spotty 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 network value, lowers management hassle, and saves money. For details, visit ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring applications.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
  Progent has partnered with leading backup/restore technology providers to produce ProSight Data Protection Services, a selection of subscription-based management offerings that deliver backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS products automate and monitor your backup processes and enable non-disruptive backup and rapid recovery of important files, applications, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets your business protect against data loss resulting from equipment failures, natural calamities, fire, cyber attacks such as ransomware, human error, malicious employees, or software bugs. Managed backup services in the ProSight DPS portfolio include ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, ProSight 365 Total Backup (formerly Altaro 365 Backup), ProSight ECHO Backup using Barracuda purpose-built storage, and ProSight MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent service representative can assist you to identify which of these managed services are most appropriate for your IT environment.

• ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
  ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam and virus filtering service that incorporates the technology of top information security vendors to deliver web-based management and world-class protection for all your email traffic. The hybrid architecture 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-based malware. Email Guard's cloud filter serves as a first line of defense and keeps the vast majority of threats from reaching your network firewall. This decreases your vulnerability to inbound threats and conserves network bandwidth and storage space. Email Guard's onsite security gateway device adds a deeper level of analysis for inbound email. For outgoing email, the onsite security 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 track and protect internal email that stays inside your security perimeter. For more details, visit Email Guard spam and content filtering.

• ProSight Duo Two-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Remediation, and Protected Single Sign-on
  Progent's Duo authentication services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, when you sign into a secured application and give your password you are requested to verify who you are on a device that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this second form of authentication including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register several validation devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Progent's Outsourced/Shared Service Center: Help Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Call Center managed services allow your IT group to offload Help Desk services to Progent or divide responsibilities for Service Desk support seamlessly between your in-house network support group and Progent's nationwide roster of certified IT support engineers and subject matter experts (SMEs). Progent's Shared Help Desk Service offers a transparent extension of your core support organization. User access to the Help Desk, provision of technical assistance, escalation, ticket creation and tracking, performance metrics, and maintenance of the support database are consistent whether incidents are resolved by your core network support staff, by Progent, or a mix of the two. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/shared Help Desk services.

• Active Protection Against Ransomware: AI-based Ransomware Detection and Remediation
  Progent's Active Defense Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) managed service that utilizes cutting edge behavior-based analysis technology to defend endpoints and physical and virtual servers against new malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely escape legacy signature-based AV tools. Progent Active Security Monitoring services safeguard on-premises and cloud resources and offers a unified platform to manage the entire threat lifecycle including blocking, infiltration detection, mitigation, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Key capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Learn more about Progent's ransomware defense 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 capture, maintain, find and protect data about your IT infrastructure, procedures, applications, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or serial numbers and be warned about impending expirations of SSL certificates or warranties. By updating and organizing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can save as much as 50% of time thrown away searching for critical information about your network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a common location for storing and collaborating on all documents related to managing your network infrastructure like standard operating procedures (SOPs) and How-To's. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers a high level of automation for gathering and relating IT information. Whether you're making enhancements, doing maintenance, or reacting to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the information you need when you need it. Read more about ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent's Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's support services for patch management provide organizations of any size a flexible and affordable solution for assessing, testing, scheduling, implementing, and tracking updates to your dynamic IT system. Besides maximizing the protection and functionality of your IT environment, Progent's patch management services permit your in-house IT team to concentrate on more strategic initiatives and activities that derive maximum business value from your information network. Find out more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted VMs at Progent's World-class Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size organization can have its key servers and applications hosted in a protected Tier III data center on a fast virtual machine host set up and maintained by Progent's IT support experts. With the ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer retains ownership of the data, the OS software, and the applications. Since the system is virtualized, it can be moved immediately to an alternate hosting environment without a lengthy and difficult reinstallation process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, you are not locked into one hosting service. Learn 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 cutting edge behavior-based machine learning tools to defend physical and virtual endpoint devices against modern malware attacks like ransomware and email phishing, which routinely evade legacy signature-matching anti-virus products. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects on-premises and cloud resources and offers a single platform to automate the complete threat lifecycle including filtering, infiltration detection, containment, cleanup, and forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback using Windows VSS and automatic network-wide immunization against newly discovered threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Physical and Virtual Endpoint Protection and Microsoft Exchange Filtering
  ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) services deliver economical multi-layer security for physical servers and virtual machines, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange email. ProSight ESP utilizes adaptive security and advanced machine learning for continuously monitoring and responding to security threats from all vectors. ProSight ESP delivers firewall protection, penetration alarms, endpoint management, and web filtering through leading-edge technologies packaged within one agent accessible from a unified control. Progent's security and virtualization experts can assist your business to design and implement a ProSight ESP deployment that addresses your company's specific needs and that allows you prove compliance with government and industry data security standards. Progent will help you specify and configure policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alerts that require immediate attention. Progent's consultants can also help your company to set up and verify a backup and restore system such as ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) so you can recover quickly from a destructive cyber attack like ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection unified physical and virtual endpoint security and Microsoft Exchange filtering.