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!!
FBI releases joint advisory against the BianLian ransomware gang
On Tuesday 16th of May 2023, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a joint TLP:CLEAR cybersecurity advisory warning organisations of the latest tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by the BianLian ransomware group. The advisory highlighted that BianLian is a ransomware developer, deployer, and data extortion cybercriminal group that has targeted organisations in multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors
ScanSource warns of delays following ransomware attack
On Tuesday 16th of May 2023, a US-based technology provider ScanSource disclosed that they had suffered a ransomware attack that has impacted some of its systems, business operations, and customer portals. The impact has been significant, as it is expected to cause delays in the provision of services to customers in North America and Brazil. ScanSource has stated in a press
Cisco Talos reveals RA Group ransomware targeting USA and South Korean organisations
On Monday 15th of May 2023, Cisco Talos revealed a new ransomware group named ‘RA Group’ that is targeting pharmaceutical, insurance, wealth management, and manufacturing firms in the United States and South Korea. The blog post covering the group revealed that their operation started in April 2023, when they launched a data leak site on the dark web on Sunday
Data of 5.8 million PharMerica patients stolen by ransomware gang
On Friday 12th of May 2023, a US-based pharmacy services provider PharMerica disclosed that they had suffered a data breach involving the personal information of over 5.8 million patients. According to a data breach notification, the threat actors breached PharMerica’s system on Sunday 12th of March 2023 and stole the full names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers (SSNs), medications,
FBI releases joint advisory warning of Bl00dy ransomware targets education organisation in PaperCut attacks
On Thursday 11th of May 2023, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint TLP:CLEAR cybersecurity advisory warning organisation that the Bl00dy Ransomware gang is now actively exploiting a PaperCut remote-code execution vulnerability (CVE-2023-27350) to gain initial access to networks. The advisory revealed that the Bl00dy Ransomware Gang attempted
Kroll reveals new Cactus ransomware that encrypts itself to evade antivirus
On Wednesday 10th of May 2023, Kroll revealed a new ransomware strain named ‘Cactus’ which has been exploiting vulnerabilities in VPN appliances for initial access to networks of large commercial entities since March 2023. The publication covering the strain revealed that the unique feature of the strain is its self-encryption capability. to make it difficult for antivirus software to detect
