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    Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom

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    • PhlipElderP
      PhlipElder
      last edited by

      Ugh 😛
      https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/02/payroll-provider-gives-extortionists-a-payday/

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • scottalanmillerS
        scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        Ouch

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • black3dynamiteB
          black3dynamite
          last edited by

          a0e417f9-161a-410d-8f23-d1f9ad2e613e-image.png

          nadnerBN scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • nadnerBN
            nadnerB @black3dynamite
            last edited by nadnerB

            @black3dynamite said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

            a0e417f9-161a-410d-8f23-d1f9ad2e613e-image.png

            facedesk
            Hate to be the project manager on that one.

            travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • travisdh1T
              travisdh1 @nadnerB
              last edited by

              @nadnerB said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

              @black3dynamite said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

              a0e417f9-161a-410d-8f23-d1f9ad2e613e-image.png

              facedesk
              Hate to be the project manager on that one.

              Yeah... words mean things people. mirror != backup

              JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JaredBuschJ
                JaredBusch @travisdh1
                last edited by

                @travisdh1 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                @nadnerB said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                @black3dynamite said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                a0e417f9-161a-410d-8f23-d1f9ad2e613e-image.png

                facedesk
                Hate to be the project manager on that one.

                Yeah... words mean things people. mirror != backup

                You are making assumptions here. No one said the site had no backups.

                A live offsite mirror for disaster recovery is a very important thing for some business.

                PhlipElderP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • PhlipElderP
                  PhlipElder @JaredBusch
                  last edited by

                  @JaredBusch Heh ... gives a whole new meaning to "Garbage in Garbage out". 😄

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @black3dynamite
                    last edited by

                    @black3dynamite said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                    a0e417f9-161a-410d-8f23-d1f9ad2e613e-image.png

                    I don't think that they define disaster recovery the way that the rest of us do.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • DustinB3403D
                      DustinB3403
                      last edited by

                      That is definitely a bad case of "what else could go wrong". Which to @JaredBusch point, is that if they had any backups, they clearly weren't usable.

                      The fact that their offsite mirror was affected, would be comparable to a dump truck driving into the main building, while the same exact dump truck crashes into the mirror.

                      It shouldn't be feasible with air gapped systems, this clearly wasn't/couldn't be air gapped as designed.

                      Paying the ransom was very likely because they had no backups and were expecting the Mirror to take the place of proper air gapped backups.

                      JaredBuschJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JaredBuschJ
                        JaredBusch @DustinB3403
                        last edited by

                        @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                        That is definitely a bad case of "what else could go wrong". Which to @JaredBusch point, is that if they had any backups, they clearly weren't usable.

                        The fact that their offsite mirror was affected, would be comparable to a dump truck driving into the main building, while the same exact dump truck crashes into the mirror.

                        It shouldn't be feasible with air gapped systems, this clearly wasn't/couldn't be air gapped as designed.

                        Paying the ransom was very likely because they had no backups and were expecting the Mirror to take the place of proper air gapped backups.

                        WTF are all of you people talking about..

                        Disaster recover with live mirror is not and cannot never be designed to work as a method against crypto.

                        The quote bit of the article is inane at best. It was stated by the Chief Marketing Officer. Not anyone with actual knowledge of anything.

                        The article clearly stated that paying the ransom was the fastest way to get systems online.

                        There is no insinuation anywhere that there are no backups.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • JaredBuschJ
                          JaredBusch @DustinB3403
                          last edited by

                          @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                          That is definitely a bad case of "what else could go wrong". Which to @JaredBusch point, is that if they had any backups, they clearly weren't usable.

                          I 100% never implied that. I assume that there absolutely were backups.

                          But restoring an entire infrastructe is never a fast task.

                          @scottalanmiller's recent example clearly shows that. I would be interested to know how many man hours @NTG sunk into restoring that. And it was a small typical SMB office. Not a huge SaaS provider.

                          scottalanmillerS DustinB3403D S 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • scottalanmillerS
                            scottalanmiller @JaredBusch
                            last edited by

                            @JaredBusch said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                            @scottalanmiller's recent example clearly shows that. I would be interested to know how many man hours @NTG sunk into restoring that. And it was a small typical SMB office. Not a huge SaaS provider.

                            Not done yet. But ~28 to mostly recovered.

                            PhlipElderP S 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • DustinB3403D
                              DustinB3403 @JaredBusch
                              last edited by

                              @JaredBusch said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                              @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                              That is definitely a bad case of "what else could go wrong". Which to @JaredBusch point, is that if they had any backups, they clearly weren't usable.

                              I 100% never implied that. I assume that there absolutely were backups.

                              If they have backups, but can't use them because the scale of restoration required is beyond acceptable. Then the backups aren't usable.

                              If the restore time is in the days weeks or months, then having backups such as those don't meet any RPO and RTO objectives.

                              And is thus just spending money to spend money on something that clearly doesn't work.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • DustinB3403D
                                DustinB3403
                                last edited by DustinB3403

                                Having a mirror is perfectly fine, cut fiber, power outages, ISP issues - mundane earthly problems that can be resolved by geographic distance are where mirrors come in.

                                Ransomware is not one of those, and thus a BDRP needs to be developed and tested to ensure that recovery from such an event doesn't mean rewarding the people who are ransoming them.

                                If a BDRP can't be developed and meet the RTO and RPO objectives the business must then re-evaluate if the data is at all worthwhile.

                                As for paying the ransom, the business reputation is in the dumps, they've spent however much out of pocket (will likely hit their insurance), and still need to design a BDRP that actually works and meet the RTO an RPO objectives.

                                Hopefully there is a CYA email that their IT department/MSP has so they are covered when proper backups that would work within the above RTO/RPO guidelines - but likely refused to spend. (If such a conversation actually occurred, and that the IT department actually did their jobs).

                                PhlipElderP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • PhlipElderP
                                  PhlipElder @scottalanmiller
                                  last edited by

                                  @scottalanmiller What happened?

                                  DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • DustinB3403D
                                    DustinB3403 @PhlipElder
                                    last edited by

                                    @PhlipElder said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                    @scottalanmiller What happened?

                                    Are you asking about one of the NTG clients who was hit with ransomware and they were back up and running in a few hours, or are you asking scott to exposit about this topic?

                                    PhlipElderP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • PhlipElderP
                                      PhlipElder @DustinB3403
                                      last edited by

                                      @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                      @PhlipElder said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                      @scottalanmiller What happened?

                                      Are you asking about one of the NTG clients who was hit with ransomware and they were back up and running in a few hours, or are you asking scott to exposit about this topic?

                                      Asking about the 28 hour recovery.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • PhlipElderP
                                        PhlipElder @DustinB3403
                                        last edited by

                                        @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                        Having a mirror is perfectly fine, cut fiber, power outages, ISP issues - mundane earthly problems that can be resolved by geographic distance are where mirrors come in.

                                        Ransomware is not one of those, and thus a BDRP needs to be developed and tested to ensure that recovery from such an event doesn't mean rewarding the people who are ransoming them.

                                        If a BDRP can't be developed and meet the RTO and RPO objectives the business must then re-evaluate if the data is at all worthwhile.

                                        As for paying the ransom, the business reputation is in the dumps, they've spent however much out of pocket (will likely hit their insurance), and still need to design a BDRP that actually works and meet the RTO an RPO objectives.

                                        Hopefully there is a CYA email that their IT department/MSP has so they are covered when proper backups that would work within the above RTO/RPO guidelines - but likely refused to spend. (If such a conversation actually occurred, and that the IT department actually did their jobs).

                                        RTO = Recovery Time Objective
                                        RPO = Recovery Point Objective

                                        BDRP = Building Disaster Resilience in Pakistan ?
                                        CYA = CYa when things go blotto ?

                                        DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • DustinB3403D
                                          DustinB3403
                                          last edited by

                                          Even paying the ransom didn't work as expected!

                                          chrome_2019-03-04_11-26-44.png

                                          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • DustinB3403D
                                            DustinB3403 @PhlipElder
                                            last edited by

                                            @PhlipElder said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                            @DustinB3403 said in Payroll Provider gets Encrypted & Pays Ransom:

                                            Having a mirror is perfectly fine, cut fiber, power outages, ISP issues - mundane earthly problems that can be resolved by geographic distance are where mirrors come in.

                                            Ransomware is not one of those, and thus a BDRP needs to be developed and tested to ensure that recovery from such an event doesn't mean rewarding the people who are ransoming them.

                                            If a BDRP can't be developed and meet the RTO and RPO objectives the business must then re-evaluate if the data is at all worthwhile.

                                            As for paying the ransom, the business reputation is in the dumps, they've spent however much out of pocket (will likely hit their insurance), and still need to design a BDRP that actually works and meet the RTO an RPO objectives.

                                            Hopefully there is a CYA email that their IT department/MSP has so they are covered when proper backups that would work within the above RTO/RPO guidelines - but likely refused to spend. (If such a conversation actually occurred, and that the IT department actually did their jobs).

                                            RTO = Recovery Time Objective
                                            RPO = Recovery Point Objective

                                            BDRP = Building Disaster Resilience in Pakistan ?
                                            CYA = CYa when things go blotto ?

                                            BDRP = Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan

                                            CYA = Cover your ass

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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