“News, views, and insights from your IT

experts.”

VOL. I...No. 1 Copyright © 2016 The Consilien Report Southern California, December 2016 www.Consilien.comPrinted in Torrance, CA free

Consilien: IT services with your your company’s securi-

ty and profits in mind. www.Consilien.com

2390 Crenshaw Blvd. #501 Torrance, CA 90501

RANSOMWARE: The Evolving Threat to Small Businesses

“I backup regularly, so I must be safe.” It’s a common and dangerous misconception from small and medium sized busi-ness leaders who are still using tape or disk to backup their data. It is especially dangerous when the real threat to a company is downtime associated with the inability to 1) quickly retrieve data in the likely event a company is a victim of a ransomware attack or some other unforeseen event, and 2) immediately restore their applications, network, and server.

“What will you run your data on if you don’t have access to your applications, network, or server? Are you certain that all of your backups are viable and that you can access them immediately?” These are just two of the security ques-tions security and IT infrastructure specialist, Eric H. Kong, asks during an initial security and business continuity assess-ment. The chart below demonstrates the liability of stan-dard backup versus a secure business continuity solution.

COSTING SMALL BUSINESSES $75 BILLION in 2016

“Ransomware had a big year. So big, that it has cost US small businesses upwards of $75 billion dollars in downtime,” according to disaster recov-ery and business continuity solutions firm Datto Inc.

A recent survey conducted by Datto, found that in the first six months of 2016, 60% of IT ser-vice providers reported 1-5 ransomware attacks against small and medium sized business. 63% re-ported that the attack lead to threatening levels of downtime, and 48% reported critical data loss as result of an infection.

Ransomware is a malicious virus designed to block access to your computer system. The most recent variant, Cryptolocker, generated $325 million for the hackers within 100 days of launch, according to Cyber Threat Alliance.

Some experts have projected that a billion dollars will be paid in 2016 due to ransomware infections.

Five reasons why the ransomware busi-ness is booming:

1. You don’t have to be an expert to deploy it. That’s right, cyber criminals can buy the software that will infect your company’s network.

2. It goes mostly unreported. According to Dat-to, Inc. less than 1 and 4 are reported to au-thorities, so they can act for years with impunity.

3. Payouts have increased substantially from only a few hundred dollars to tens of thou-sands of dollars, as was the case for Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital who paid their ransom-ers $17,000 in February 2016.

4. Social engineering and spear phish-

After a ransomware attack, the payment is trivial. “From the perspective of the CFO [or controller], what goes unaccounted for...is the lost productivity, lost profits, harm to business reputation, cost of recon-structing data, and other damages that flow from these attacks,” (Aug.31, 2016 CFO.com)

“Company’s most at risk are the ones with management who believe data and network security are just IT issues, when it is a profitability and insurance issue,” says Eric H. Kong, security and IT infrastructure specialist at Consilien.

Ransomware is Big Business, and It’s Booming

Top Security Risk for SMBs is Backup

BY KRISTA MAGIDSON

BY JUAN MARTIN

The Consilien Report

CONSILIEN Total Data Protection vs. Standard Backup

Standard Backup Business Continuity

LOCAL PROTECTION AGAINST LOSS X P

CLOUD PROTECTION AGAINST RANSOMWARE Sometimes P

RESTORE APPLICATIONS, NETWORK & FILES Sometimes P

INSTANT LOCAL & CLOUD FAILOVER X P

ABILITY TO PREVENT DOWNTIME X P

TYPICAL RECOVERY TIME OBJECTIVE (RTO) Hours to Days P

ing emails are designed to by-pass your anti-virus, an-ti-malware, and firewall. Long gone are the days when you’d receive a message from a Nigerian Prince, now cyber criminals spend time getting to know you, your employees, and vendors then send cleverly disguised emails. According to a study published this year by PhishMe.com, 93% of all emails are phishing emails.

5. It is nearly impossible to remove, once you’ve been infected, which guarantees you’ll pay. The most popular variant, Cryptolocker, encrypts your files and data, locks you out, and creates a random symmetric key for each file. The key uses an asymmetric public-private key en-cryption algorithm (RSA) and keys of over 1024 bits, and adds it to the encrypted file. According to Panda Securi-ty, “the [virus] makes sure that only the owner of the pri-vate RSA key can obtain the random key to encrypt the file. Also, as the computer files are overwritten, it is im-possible to retrieve them using forensic methods.” MITIGATING YOUR RISK

According to the CFO.com article “How to Mitigate the Threat of Ransomware,” you should control risk by incor-porating some of the following practices:

• Train and educate personnel on an ongoing basis.• Specifically address and plan for a ransomware in

the business’ disaster recovery and business conti-nuity plans.

• Engage a third-party vendor to assess your organi-zations systems and procedures.

The ransom note was clear, their company files had been seized. The culprits were de-manding $10,000 payable in bitcoin. How-ever, the mistake these would-be thieves made was giving the client 72-hours to pay.

When the client call came through to Consil-ien’s 24-hour, 7 days a week help desk, we imme-diately went into action.

First, we called the client and requested that she unplug all the computers to protect the net-work. Next, using our remote access capabilities we found that one of the company’s servers had been infected. Luckily, they had their Consilien Business Continuity Siris appliance on site and we were able to restore all the data with-in an hour.

At the same time the client was on the phone with us, our technical team was dispatched and, on site within an hour. Once there, we system-atically searched nearly 60 computers until we found “patient zero.” Total company down-time was 2 hours, with no loss of data, and their bank account intact.

How did the culprits find their mark? Through an innocent looking email sent to an unsuspect-ing employee.

Our fully managed end-to-end Consil-ien Business Continuity Solution saves small businesses from ransomware, malware, and even human error.

“Most CFO’s and business owners believe that backup will help them in the likely event they are infected with ransomware, but

it won’t,” says Eric H. Kong, security and IT in-frastructure specialist and co-founder of IT solu-tions company Consilien.

Consilien’s Business Continuity Solution (BCS) for SMBs uses award-winning technology and backup support. Features include:

• Imaged-based technology that backs up and secures the entire IT infra-structure including data, files, applica-tions, network and operating system

• State-of-the-art security with both on-premise/local backup and a vir-tualized version of the entire infra-structure stored in multiple locations across the country

• Near instant access of the entire environment in the likely event of a ransomware infection, fire, flood, natural disaster, or anything in between

• If the server fails, clients have instant access to a virtual server and their employees can be back to work in minutes with very little downtime

• Backups are tested and validated daily• End-to-end encryption• 24/7/365 tech support. Consilien’s BCS provides stability and guaran-

tees uptime, no matter what.

Contact the experts at Consilien at 866.680.3388 for a FREE, No Obligation, Security Assessment and Recovery Demo.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY: The Security Solution You’re MissingA CASE STUDY: HOW CONSILIEN’S BUSINESS CONTINUITY SOLUTION SAVES CHEMICAL COMPANY FROM PAYING $10,000 RANSOM

The Consilien Report [Big Business, from page. 1]

“Consilien has helped us maintain a very stable and up-to-date IT environment over the years. They are very consistent in their support and do an excellent job!”

--Suzanne FaustCFO, Dura Coat Products, Inc.

Business Continuity,it’s better than backup

No matter what happens... Business Continuity Solutions can guarantee uptime and stability. It’s better than backup.

C o n t i n o u s U p t i m e & S t a b i l i t y N o M a t t e r W h a t H a p p e n s

Standard backup is a liability.Consilien’s Business Continuity Solution

is a guarantee.

Call 866.680.3388 for your FREE, No Obligation, IT Security Assessment

and Recovery Demo

Consilien: Managed IT, Security & Business Continuity Specialists. 2390 Crenshaw Blvd., #501 Torrance, CA 90501

www.Consilien.com |Sales.Dept@Consilien.com |866.680.3388