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!!
Government of Montenegro confirms ransomware attack, Cuba ransomware group claim responsible
On Wednesday 31st of August 2022, the government of Montenegro confirmed that ransomware was responsible for the damage and disruptions that have impacted its critical infrastructure. Public Administration Minister Maras Dukaj stated on local television that an organised cybercrime group was behind the attack. The minister was quoted saying that a “special virus” is used in the attack and there
Ragnar Locker ransomware claims attack on TAP Air Portugal
On the night of Thursday 25th of August, TAP Air Portugal, the flag carrier of Portugal, disclosed that their systems were hit by a cyber attack which resulted in their website and app being unavailable. The company stated that the attack had been blocked and added that it found no evidence indicating the attackers gained access to customer information stored
Baker & Taylor, a leading library services firm confirms the ransomware attack
On Tuesday 23rd of August 2022, Baker & Taylor, a leading distributor of books to libraries around the world, confirmed that they experienced a ransomware attack which resulted in Baker & Taylor’s servers being taken down after an outage that impacted the company’s phone systems, offices, and service centres. “As an update, the source of the disruption is a ransomware
The attack against Bombardier RecreationalProducts claimed by the RansomEXX ransomware group
On Monday 8th of August 2022, Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP), a Canadian maker of Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Sea-Doo jet skis, ATVs, motorcycles, watercraft, and Rotax engines confirmed that they were a target of a cyber attack which resulted in Bombardier Recreational Products taking immediate measures that suspended their operations temporarily. On Monday 15th of August 2022, Bombardier Recreational Products provided an
Dominican Republic’s IAD disrupted by Quantum ransomware attack
It has been revealed that the Dominican Republic’s Instituto Agrario Dominicano (IAD) has suffered a Quantum ransomware attack that encrypted multiple services and workstations throughout the government agency. Reports from local media publicized that the ransomware attack occurred on Thursday 18th of August 2022. “They ask for more than 600 thousand dollars. We were affected by four physical servers and
French hospital sends patients elsewhere after $10M ransomware attack
On Sunday 21st of August 2022, the Center Hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF), a 1000-bed hospital located 28km from the center of Paris, suffered a cyberattack which has resulted in the medical centre referring patients to other establishments and postponing appointments for surgeries. The hospital’s administration has not provided further updates on the situation, and the IT system outage is still
