Remote Network Management for Small and Midsize Businesses

Ransomware has become the weapon of choice for the major cyber-crime organizations, posing an existential threat to businesses that fall victim. The latest strains of ransomware target everything, including backup, making even partial recovery a long and expensive process. New variations of ransomware like Ryuk, Maze, Sodinokibi, Netwalker, and Egregor have made the headlines, displacing WannaCry, Cerber, CryptoWall, and NotPetya in notoriety, elaborateness, and destructive impact.

90% of ransomware infections come from innocent-seeming emails with malicious links or attachments, and many are so-called "zero-day" attacks that can escape detection by traditional signature-based antivirus (AV) tools. While user education and frontline detection are critical to defend against ransomware, best practices dictate that you assume some attacks will succeed and that you put in place a strong backup solution that allows you to recover quickly with minimal damage.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is an ultra-affordable service centered around an interview with a Progent security consultant experienced in ransomware defense and recovery. Progent will help determine your company's readiness to block or recover from a ransomware attack. During this interview Progent will work directly with you to gather pertinent information about your security and backup environment. Progent will use this information to produce a written Basic Security and Best Practices Report detailing how to apply best practices for configuring and managing your security and backup systems.

Progent's Basic Security and Best Practices Report focuses on key issues associated with prevention (Security) and recovery (Backups). The review addresses:

Security

• Correct use of administration accounts
• Correct NTFS and SMB permissions
• Optimal firewall settings
• Secure RDP connections
• AntiVirus tools selection and configuration

• Split permission model for backup protection
• Backing up required servers (AD)
• Offsite backups including cloud backup to Azure

About Ransomware
Ransomware is a form of malware that either encrypts files so they are unreadable or deletes them altogether. Ransomware often locks the victim's computer so it is unusable. To reverse the damage, the victim is required to pay a specified amount of money (the ransom), typically via a crypto currency like Bitcoin, within a short time window. There is no guarantee that paying the ransom will result in a recovery. Compromised or deleted files can extend throughout a network depending on the victim's write permissions, and the military-grade encryption algorithm used on the hostage files cannot be broken. A common ransomware attack vector is spoofed email, which the user is lured into opening by a social engineering technique known as spear phishing. This makes the email look as though it came from a trusted sender. The most targeted attack vector is an improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port. These are becoming more of a problem as businesses support more at-home workers.

CryptoLocker opened the modern era of ransomware in 2013, and the damage caused by ransomware variants is estimated at billions of dollars annually, more than doubling every two years. Notorious recent threats include WannaCry/WannaCrypt, Locky, Cerber, NotPetya and Spora. Current high-profile threats like Ryuk, Maze, and Sodinokibi are more elaborate and have caused more havoc. Even if your backup processes allow you to recover your ransomed files, you can still be threatened by exfiltration, where stolen data is made publc (known as "doxxing"). Because new variants of ransomware crop up daily, there is no guarantee that conventional signature-matching anit-virus tools will block the latest attack. If an attack does show up in an email, it is critical that your users have been educated to be wary of social engineering tricks. Your last line of defense is a solid scheme for scheduling and retaining offsite backups plus the deployment of reliable recovery tools.

ProSight Managed Services Offered by Progent
Progent's ProSight network management suite is a family of affordable, subscription-based service packages that allow small and mid-size businesses to outsource crucial IT management functions. ProSight services that can help defend against or recover from ransomware attacks include email filtering, next-generation AV based on behavior analysis, automatic isolation of infected computers and immediate inoculation of safe devices, plus cloud-based backup with both granular and whole-site recovery.

• ProSight Managed Service Plans: for Small to Mid-size Businesses
  Progent's ProSight Managed IT Service Packages make it possible for small and mid-size companies to utilize Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) solutions to create leading-edge IT resilience. Progent takes care of the daily monitoring and maintenance for you, so your system expands readily without holding you back. For a low and predictable monthly subscription, Progent's experienced IT group can be your complete technology safety net. Basic packages include remote monitoring and management (RMM), security, automatic monthly patching, and reporting. As your requirements grow, you can add low-cost subscriptions to best-of-breed solutions like as SaaS M365/Google Workspace backup, 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 state-of-the-art remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology to help keep your IT system operating efficiently by tracking the state of vital assets that power your business network. When ProSight LAN Watch detects a problem, an alarm is transmitted automatically to your specified IT management staff and your assigned Progent consultant so that any looming problems can be resolved before they can impact productivity. Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop monitoring consulting.

• ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM: Centralized RMM for Networks, Servers, and Workstations
  ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM software offers a unified, cloud-based solution for managing your network, server, and desktop devices by providing tools for performing common tedious tasks. These include health monitoring, patch management, automated remediation, endpoint configuration, backup and restore, anti-virus protection, remote access, built-in and custom scripts, resource inventory, endpoint status reporting, and troubleshooting support. If ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM identifies a serious issue, it transmits an alarm to your designated IT management staff and your assigned Progent technical consultant so potential problems can be taken care of before they interfere with productivity. Find out more details about ProSight LAN Watch with NinjaOne RMM server and desktop remote monitoring consulting.

• ProSight WAN Watch: Network Infrastructure Management
  ProSight WAN Watch is an infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for small and mid-sized organizations to map, track, reconfigure and debug their networking appliances like switches, firewalls, and access points as well as servers, client computers and other networked devices. Incorporating cutting-edge Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) technology, ProSight WAN Watch ensures that infrastructure topology maps are kept updated, captures and displays the configuration information of virtually all devices on your network, monitors performance, and sends alerts when potential issues are discovered. By automating time-consuming management processes, WAN Watch can cut hours off common chores such as making network diagrams, expanding your network, finding devices that require important software patches, or identifying the cause of performance bottlenecks. Find out more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure management consulting.

• ProSight Reporting: In-depth Reporting for Ticketing and Network Monitoring Platforms
  ProSight Reporting is an expanding suite of in-depth management reporting utilities designed to integrate with the top ticketing and remote network monitoring platforms including ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Automate, Customer Thermometer, Auvik, and SentinelOne. ProSight Reporting uses Microsoft Graph and utilizes color coding to surface and contextualize critical issues like spotty support follow-up or machines with missing patches. By identifying ticketing or network health problems clearly and in near-real time, ProSight Reporting enhances network value, lowers management overhead, and saves money. For details, see ProSight Reporting for ticketing and network monitoring platforms.

• ProSight Data Protection Services: Backup and Recovery Services
  Progent has worked with advanced backup technology providers to create ProSight Data Protection Services, a family of subscription-based management offerings that provide backup-as-a-service. ProSight DPS services manage and monitor your backup processes and enable non-disruptive backup and fast restoration of important files/folders, apps, system images, plus virtual machines. ProSight DPS lets you protect against data loss caused by equipment breakdown, natural disasters, fire, cyber attacks such as ransomware, human error, malicious insiders, or software bugs. Managed backup services available 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 storage, and ProSight MSP360 Cloud and On-prem Backup. Your Progent expert can help you to identify which of these fully managed backup services are most appropriate 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 infrastructure of leading data security companies to provide centralized control and comprehensive protection for your inbound and outbound email. The powerful architecture of Progent's Email Guard combines a Cloud Protection Layer with a local security gateway device to offer advanced defense against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-based malware. Email Guard's cloud filter acts as a preliminary barricade and blocks the vast majority of threats from making it to your security perimeter. This decreases your vulnerability to external threats and saves network bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises security gateway device provides a deeper level of inspection for inbound email. For outgoing email, the onsite security gateway provides AV and anti-spam protection, protection against data leaks, and email encryption. The onsite security gateway can also help Exchange Server to monitor and protect internal email traffic that originates and ends inside your corporate firewall. For more information, visit ProSight Email Guard spam filtering and data leakage protection.

• ProSight Duo Multi-Factor Authentication: Access Security, Endpoint Remediation, and Protected Single Sign-on (SSO)
  Progent's Duo authentication managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity confirmation on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, when you log into a protected online account and enter your password you are asked to verify your identity on a device that only you possess and that uses a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of devices can be used for this second means of ID validation including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate multiple verification devices. To find out more about Duo identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication services.

• Outsourced/Co-managed Call Desk: Support Desk Managed Services
  Progent's Call Center services allow your IT group to outsource Help Desk services to Progent or divide responsibilities for Help Desk services transparently between your internal network support team and Progent's extensive pool of IT support technicians, engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's Shared Service Desk provides a transparent extension of your corporate network support staff. End user access to the Service Desk, provision of technical assistance, problem escalation, ticket generation and tracking, efficiency metrics, and management of the service database are consistent regardless of whether issues are resolved by your corporate IT support organization, by Progent, or by a combination. Find out more about Progent's outsourced/co-managed Help Center services.

• Active Defense Against Ransomware: Machine Learning-based Ransomware Identification and Remediation
  Progent's Active Protection Against Ransomware is an endpoint protection (EPP) managed service that incorporates next generation behavior-based analysis technology to guard endpoints as well as physical and virtual servers against new malware attacks like ransomware and file-less exploits, which easily escape legacy signature-based anti-virus products. Progent Active Security Monitoring services protect on-premises and cloud resources and provides a single platform to manage the complete malware attack progression including filtering, infiltration detection, containment, remediation, and forensics. Top capabilities include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and real-time system-wide immunization against newly discovered attacks. Read more about Progent's ransomware defense and recovery 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 about your network infrastructure, processes, applications, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or IP addresses and be alerted automatically about upcoming expirations of SSL certificates or warranties. By cleaning up and managing your IT documentation, you can save as much as half of time spent searching for critical information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a centralized repository for storing and sharing all documents related to managing your business network such as standard operating procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports a high level of automation for gathering and associating IT information. Whether you're planning improvements, performing maintenance, or responding to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management delivers the knowledge you require when you need it. Learn more about ProSight IT Asset Management service.

• Progent's Patch Management: Patch Management Services
  Progent's support services for software and firmware patch management offer organizations of all sizes a flexible and affordable alternative for evaluating, validating, scheduling, applying, and tracking updates to your ever-evolving information network. In addition to optimizing the protection and reliability of your computer environment, Progent's patch management services allow your IT staff to focus on line-of-business initiatives and activities that deliver the highest business value from your information network. Find out more about Progent's patch management services.

• ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted VMs at Progent's Tier III Data Center
  With ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small organization can have its key servers and apps hosted in a protected Tier III data center on a fast virtual machine host configured and maintained by Progent's IT support professionals. With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting model, the customer retains ownership of the data, the OS platforms, and the apps. Since the system is virtualized, it can be moved easily to a different hardware environment without a time-consuming and technically risky reinstallation process. 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
  Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection (EPP) service that incorporates SentinelOne's next generation behavior machine learning technology to defend physical and virtual endpoints against modern malware assaults like ransomware and file-less exploits, which routinely escape legacy signature-based AV tools. ProSight Active Security Monitoring protects on-premises and cloud resources and provides a unified platform to address the complete threat lifecycle including blocking, identification, mitigation, remediation, and forensics. Top features include one-click rollback using Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and automatic system-wide immunization against new threats. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring next-generation endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

• ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Physical and Virtual Endpoint Protection and Microsoft Exchange Email Filtering
  Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services offer ultra-affordable in-depth protection for physical servers and virtual machines, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP utilizes adaptive security and advanced machine learning for round-the-clock monitoring and responding to security assaults from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP delivers two-way firewall protection, penetration alerts, endpoint control, and web filtering via leading-edge technologies incorporated within one agent managed from a unified console. Progent's data protection and virtualization consultants can help your business to plan and configure a ProSight ESP environment that addresses your organization's specific requirements and that allows you demonstrate compliance with legal and industry information security regulations. Progent will help you define and configure policies that ProSight ESP will enforce, and Progent will monitor your network and react to alarms that require urgent action. Progent can also assist you to set up and verify a backup and disaster recovery solution such as ProSight Data Protection Services 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.

ProSight Network Audits
Progent's ProSight Network Audits are a quick and low-cost alternative for small and medium-size organizations to get an objective evaluation of the health of their IT system. Based on some of the leading remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools in the industry, and overseen by Progent's world-class group of information technology experts, ProSight Network Audits show you how well the deployment of your essential infrastructure devices adhere to industry leading practices. The Basic and Advanced options for ProSight Network Audit services are available at a low, one-time cost and deliver instant benefits like a more manageable Active Directory (AD) system. Both versions also include one year of state-of-the-art remote network monitoring and management. Benefits can include lower-cost network management, improved compliance with government and industry security standards, higher utilization of network resources, quicker troubleshooting, more reliable backup and restore, and less downtime. Read more about ProSight Network Audits IT infrastructure review.

Contact Progent to Find Out More about Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report Service
For pricing information and to learn more about how Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report can reduce your vulnerability to ransomware, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.