Nihon Cyber Defence Co., Ltd.
HELP and ADVICE - Ransomware
Unfortunately, it is not a case of if, but when you will be impacted …
Nihon Cyber Defence’s (NCD) highly experienced team understands the challenges that the victims of these attacks face. We know that CEOs, CIOs and CISO’s and Senior Leadership Teams, need objective, helpful and timely advice to allow them to lead a successful recovery and mitigation.
Therefore, we have launched an advice service that gives victim organisations immediate access to the right guidance through industry experts, allowing organisations to prepare or respond to incidents.
We will assist in preparing, defending or responding to an attack and whilst our ransomware advice service is currently intended primarily for Japanese organisations, NCD has impressive experience working on ransomware and other forms of devastating cyber-attacks globally. You can learn more about what we offer here…
At Nihon Cyber Defence (NCD) we see the impact that cyber-attacks and in particular ransomware attacks can have. Whilst it has been major ransomware attacks that have dominated the headlines, the reality is that an enormous range of organisations are being impacted.
This increase in the number and sophistication of attacks has been driven by Ransomware as a Service (RaaS), that has made sophisticated cyber tools available to a growing range of criminal groups.
Dealing with a major cyber incident
For an organisation’s senior management, a ransomware attack is a major test of leadership. At NCD we believe that is important that senior managers, who are often under immense pressure, are supported through an incident. We have therefore – at the suggestion of several organisations that we have helped – are launching a cyber security advice service.
The key elements of this service are that it is:
- Confidential
- Cost effective
- Provides access to world-class cyber security experts
- For anyone in a leadership position
Purpose
The sole purpose of the NCD Advice Service is to help you recover from a Cyber Attack
Process
The way that this service works is:
- Companies that believe that they may have become the victim of a cyber-attack, contact NCD through our online portal (please do not use an email address that may have been compromised in the attack).
- A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is quickly put in place to ensure complete confidentiality.
- After an initial discussion with a native Japanese speaker, a secure video conferencing call will be set up between the company’s management and world-class cyber security experts who have dealt with many hundreds of cyber security incidents. This call can be in English or with Japanese translation.
- During the call senior managers CEO’s, CIOs, CFO’s, CISO’s or anyone else who finds themselves in a cyber incident management leadership role will have the opportunity to ask questions of these experts. These can be general questions around best and poor practice or specific technical questions.
Asking the right questions
For senior managers who do not have a technical background we will equip you with the questions to ask of your Incident Response team. They could include:
- Technical Understanding – How did the incident happen? Has the access and attack vector been identified and closed? Is the attacker off the network or still there? Is there still a risk of further attack
- Mitigation – What is the damage? What data has been affected or exfiltrated. How do we deal and mitigate this?
- Attribution and Investigation – Who was behind the attack? Why was the victim targeted? Is there an option to pay? Will we negotiate to identify the data exfoliated or to delay exposure? Do we know where the exposure will be … can we disrupt this? Can we recover the encrypted data? Should you involve law enforcement?
- Regulatory– What action is required from the data protection authorities or financial regulatory authorities?
- Comms – What is the internal and external Comms plan? Will this be protective or reactive (pending exposure)? How will we inform affected data subjects?
- Resilience – What is the plan to rebuild our network securely and how can we re-establish customer confidence and commercial reputation?
- Governance – What advice and guidance should be made available to the Board during an incident? How should the Incident be managed?
- Support – What external support do you require? As importantly, what support do we not require? How do we manage the expense of this support?
- Engagement with the hostile actors. Should we engage? What are the risks associated with paying the ransom? How should engagement be taken forward?
Whilst this is designed to be a one-off service, many of our clients have found our experts’ advice to be invaluable and ask us to remain engaged acting as a critical friend or to provide specialist technical services through the attack.
Other services
- Preparation– boards awareness, incident planning and exercising
- Monitoring – developing the deployment of the technical solutions pre and post in a cyber incident
Consultants
Our customers tell us that, having won the work, the major consulting companies use primarily junior staff to carry out the work. At NCD we only use consultants with many decades of experience.
Latest Ransomware News!!
Ransomware attack shuts down mill of Canadian mining firm
Late on Tuesday 27th of December 2022, The Canadian Copper Mountain Mining Corporation (CMMC) in British Columbia experienced a cyberattack that resulted in the CMMC’s engineers decided to shut down the mill as a preventative measure to determine the status of its control system, while other processes switched to manual operations. “The Company’s external and internal IT teams are continuing
Cyber attack on the Port of Lisbon Administration claimed by the LockBit ransomware operation
On Monday 26th of December 2022, the third-largest port in Portugal, the Port of Lisbon Administration (APL) shared with local media outlets that they had experienced a cyber attack that did not impact their operations. “All safety protocols and response measures provided for this type of occurrence were quickly activated, the situation being monitored by the National Cybersecurity Center and
Hive ransomware gang claim a cyber attack against Louisiana medical complex
On Friday 21st of October 2022, the largest medical complex in Lake Charles, Louisiana, The Lake Charles Memorial Health System experienced a cyber attack that involved the threat actors gaining unauthorized access to their network and stealing sensitive files. The files contained patient information such as: Full names Physical addresses Dates of birth Medical records Patient identification numbers Health insurance
H-Hotels cyber attack claimed by Play ransomware
On Sunday 11th of December 2022, a German hotel chain, H-Hotels experienced a cyber attack that resulted in their IT systems being immediately shut down and disconnected from the Internet in order to stop further spread. Although the attack did not impact guests’ bookings, hotel staff were not able to receive or answer customer requests sent via email. “According to
BlackCat ransomware gang believed to be responsible for a cyber attack against Colombian energy supplier EPM
On Monday 12th of December 2022, the Colombian energy company Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) experienced a ransomware attack that disrupted the company’s operations and took down online services. On Tuesday 13th of December 2022, the company told approximately 4,000 employees to work from home, with IT infrastructure down. Even though EPM did not disclose the ransomware operation behind the
Cyber attack against Belgium city of Antwerp claimed by Play ransomware
On Thursday 5th of December 2022, Digipolis, the IT company responsible for managing the Belgium city of Antwerp’s IT systems, suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted the city’s IT, email, and phone services. It was reported that many of the city’s Windows applications were no longer available, and City council member Alexandra d’Archambeau publicly tweeted that email was not available. It also
