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!!
Japanese pharmaceutical giant Eisai discloses ransomware attack
On Tuesday 6th of June 2023, Eisai, a Tokyo-based pharmaceutical company Eisai disclosed it suffered a ransomware incident over the weekend that impacted its operations following the threat actors encrypting some of its servers. In response to the attack, Eisai has taken many of its IT systems offline to contain the damage and prevent the spread of the locker to
2.5 million individuals impacted following ransomware against Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
Last week, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), a Massachusetts-based non-profit health services provider released a data breach notice disclosing that a ransomware attack it suffered in April 2023 impacted 2,550,922 people, as well as the threat actors stealing their sensitive data from compromised systems. The notice revealed that the threat actors had maintained access to HPHC’s systems between March 28
8.9 million people impacted by MCNA Dental data breach after ransomware attack
On Friday 26th of May 2023, one of the largest government-sponsored (Medicaid and CHIP) dental care and oral health insurance providers in the U.S., Managed Care of North America (MCNA) Dental released a data breach notification, disclosing almost 9 million patients had their personal data were compromised. MCNA announced in the notice that it had become aware of unauthorized access
Attack against City of Augusta claimed by BlackByte ransomware gang
On Friday 2nd of June 2023, the city of Augusta in Georgia, U.S. confirmed that the recent IT system outage was caused by unauthorized access to its network. The city explained that it started experiencing technical difficulties on Sunday, May 21, which disrupted some of its computer systems. “Augusta’s Information Technology Department continues to work diligently to investigate the incident, to confirm
German arms maker Rheinmetall confirms BlackBasta ransomware attack
German automotive and arms manufacturer Rheinmetall AG has confirmed that it suffered a BlackBasta ransomware attack that impacted its civilian business. The incident was revealed following the BlackBasta ransomware group naming Rheinmetall on its extortion site on Saturday 20th of May 2023. The group also released samples of the data the hackers claimed to have stolen from the German company.
New MalasLocker ransomware demands charity donation after targeting Zimbra servers
This week, a new ransomware operation, dubbed MalasLocker by BleepingComputer, has been observed which is targeting Zimbra servers to steal emails and encrypt files since the end of March 2023. Although instead of demanding a ransom payment, the threat actors claim to require a donation to charity to provide an encryptor and prevent data leaking. “Unlike traditional ransomware groups, we’re
