Credit: Dreamstime
Victoria-based managed service provider Data Central has helped salvage the operations of an unnamed customer following a major ransomware attack.
The company was called in to assist the customer after cyber-attackers hacked into, infected and encrypted its systems, before demanding US$75,000 in bitcoin.
According to Data Central CEO Andrew Cunningham, the customer had moved offices and decided to wait until the relocation was complete before updating its security and backup infrastructure.
However, within that space of time, a hacker breached their current security app, allegedly a household name product, and launched the ransomware attack in the evening of 30 August.
By morning, all systems were infected, with all backups were unrecoverable. According to Cunningham, all files were encrypted and could not be restored and all but two PCs and servers were infected with ransomware.
The customer, having decided not to pay the ransomware fee, had previously installed Comodo advanced endpoint protection (AEP) on two PCs as part of a trial, with those remaining free of infection, according to Cunningham.
“We did our due diligence, tested it and found that the Comodo auto containment technology and Valkyrie (the Comodo artificial intelligence engine) worked flawlessly in every test we threw at it,” he added.
Cunningham added that he believed the customer would have had a better outcome if it had deployed Comodo before the move to the new office.
“Until you see first-hand the devastation that a ransomware attack causes, you can’t believe the pain,” he said. “I have just gone through almost 36 hours with almost no sleep. The customer’s business has been dreadfully impacted.”
Data Central is now deploying Datto backup and disaster recovery to provide an even higher level of recoverability for the customer.
