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!!
Pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen confirms subsidiary data breach
This week, the Pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen confirmed that they suffered a cyber attack against one of its subsidiaries following the Lorenz ransomware gang listing AmerisourceBergen with allegedly stolen data on its extortion site. AmerisourceBergen also confirmed that the threat actors compromised the IT system of the targeted subsidiary which could have given the ransomware group a chance to exfiltrate data
LockBit ransomware group claim a cyber attack against ION Group
On the 31st of January 2023, ION Group, a UK-based software company that provides products to financial institutions, banks, and corporations for trading, investment management, and market analytics, disclosed that they had been targeted by a cyber attack that impacted their ION Cleared Derivatives. As a result of the attack, all the affected servers are disconnected which led to a
LockBit ransomware group announce a new encryptor based on the leaked source code of Conti ransomware
This week, it was revealed that the LockBit ransomware gang has released their latest encryptor named “LockBit Green”. After analyse by cyber security analysts and information disclosed by the ransomware group, it has been revealed that the new encryptor “LockBit Green” is based on the leaked source code of the former Conti ransomware. Furthermore, the cybersecurity firm PRODAFT stated that
Arnold Clark reveal that customer data was stolen in a cyber attack claimed by Play ransomware
This week, the self-described as Europe’s largest independent car retailer, Arnold Clark notified some of its customers that their personal information was stolen in a cyber attack on the 23rd of December 2022 that was claimed by the Play ransomware group. It is believed that the stolen data includes ID information and banking details. In response to the cyber attack,
US Department of Justice announce an international law enforcement operation against the Hive ransomware operation
On the 26th of January 2023, the US Department of Justice along with the FBI and Europol announced an international law enforcement operation against the Hive ransomware operation which resulted in the Hive ransomware operation’s Tor payment and data leak sites being seized. The law enforcement operation involved the FBI and other international partners secretly infiltrating the Hive ransomware gang’s
LAUSD reveals Vice Society ransomware gang stole contractors’ personal information
This week, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) revealed that the Vice Society ransomware gang had stolen files containing contractors’ personal information, including Social Security Numbers (SSNs) during a cyber attack that spanned over two months, between the 31st of July 2022, and the 3rd of September 2022. “Through our ongoing investigation, we determined that between July 31, 2022,
