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!!
Saks Fifth Avenue confirms cyber security incident concerning Clop ransomware gang’s claims
On Monday 20th of March 2023, the Clop ransomware gang claimed to have attacked Saks Fifth Avenue on its dark web leak site. It is believed that the incident is a part of the gang’s ongoing attacks against vulnerable GoAnywhere MFT servers using the CVE-2023-0669 vulnerability. Since the post was released, sources have contacted Saks and a spokesperson confirmed the
Hitachi Energy confirms data breach after CL0P’s wave of GoAnywhere attacks
On Friday 17th of March 2023, Hitachi Energy, a department of Japanese engineering and technology giant Hitachi confirmed it suffered a data breach after the Clop ransomware gang stole data using a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-0669) in the Fortra GoAnywhere MFT (Managed File Transfer), that was first disclosed on February 2023. “We recently learned that a third-party software provider called FORTRA
HACLA housing authority discloses data breach after LockBit ransomware attack
Recently, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) released a data breach notice following the LockBit ransomware gang listing HACLA on their Tor leak site. The data breach revealed that on Saturday 31st of December 2022, HACLA discovered that computer systems on its network had been encrypted which resulted in them being forced to shut down all
Medusa ransomware gang releases video of data stolen from Minneapolis Public Schools district
On Tuesday 7th of March 2023, the Medusa ransomware gang listed the Minneapolis Public Schools district as a victim on its Tor data leak site, threatening to publish all data it allegedly stole from the public school district by Friday the 17th of March 2023. The ransomware gang has demanded a payment of $1 million for the deletion of all data
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona heavily impacted by a ransomware attack
On Sunday 5th of March 2023, the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona suffered a ransomware attack that resulted in severe disruptions to its healthcare services after the organisation’s virtual machines were targeted by the attack. Following a statement issued by the Government of Catalonia, the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona suffered an attack by the RansomHouse ransomware operation. The statement also revealed
FBI releases joint advisory alert against the Royal ransomware gang
On Thursday 2nd of March 2023, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a joint TLP:WHITE cybersecurity advisory which revealed threat actors have been using the Royal ransomware since September 2022 where they have targeted numerous critical infrastructure sectors including, but not limited to, Manufacturing, Communications, Healthcare and Public Healthcare (HPH), and Education. It is believed that the
