Ransomware Notice To Clients
The recent news of the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles paying $17,000 to cyber attackers and a recent recovery situation for a client has prompted MTBW to reiterate recommendations to all those we have business dealings. Read the full article.
Ransomware is different than conventional viruses, Trojans and Malware, for it encrypts data that requires a specific encryption key to decrypt the information. The cyber attackers use the same technology that encrypts and protects financial and other confidential information transactions via the Internet. As you’ll read in the article the hospital was down for 10 days, while law enforcement and computer experts attempted futilely to clean and restore the system.
Additionally just this week we had to assist a new client with a ransomware incident. It was a three day exercise to just return to a point of mostly regular business operations with a measurable amount of follow up work to complete.
The ransomware has many evolving variants and proves to be a moving target. Working with some of the foremost security firms there are additional current security configurations that are warranted and time sensitive. How MTBW is going to move forward is listed below, but we cannot emphasize sufficiently that multiple layers of security are required, regular reviews of your security posture are paramount and insuring that complete backups are completed successfully and tested is of an utmost importance. Normal IT business operations have an inherent level of vulnerability that outside of disconnecting from the world cannot be totally eradicated, but Defense in Depth security measures should be deployed to insure your network is a most formidable target.
MTBW Clients that have Managed Service Agreements or we deal with regularly – Those that have Unified Threat Management system firewalls will have them altered with the latest recommended security settings. Endpoint protection software will be reviewed and adjusted again to meet the various security manufactures recommended security settings.
MTBW Clients that we engage with on a sporadic basis/as needed – Please review your security and backup devices, software and configuration in detail. If you need any assistance or just want some additional information please take the liberty to contact your MTBW Services representative.
