Fight back against Ransomware with Advance2000 Ransomware Recovery Assurance Platform (RRAP)

The 60 minutes segment this week highlighted how the FBI and private security companies are in constant combat with ransomware

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IT Security Ransomware

The 60 minutes segment this week highlighted how the FBI and private security companies are in constant combat with ransomware gangs: hackers who break into corporate computer networks, encrypt, or lock up critical files and hold them hostage until a ransom is paid. It’s a crime that has been growing more disruptive every year. Victims include companies large and small, cities and municipalities, hospitals, and some of the toughest targets to infiltrate: Las Vegas hotels and casinos.

In September 2023, one of the most pernicious ransomware attacks in history was unleashed on MGM Resorts – costing the hotel and casino giant more than $100 million. It disrupted operations at a dozen of the most renowned gaming palaces on the Las Vegas strip: MGM Grand, Aria, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York, the Bellagio. Across the Vegas strip… thousands of slot machines suddenly stopped paying out. Elevators were malfunctioning… parking gates froze… digital door keys wouldn’t work. As computers went down, reservations locked up and lines backed up at the front desks. For the next four or five days with 36,000 hotel rooms and some regional properties they were completely in the dark. The hackers demanded $30 million to unlock MGM’s data. The company refused. But they still paid a price – $100 million in lost revenue and millions more to rebuild their servers.

So how did the intruders get in? Through a technique of deception and manipulation called social engineering. First hackers zeroed in on an employee, gathering information from the dark web and open sources like LinkedIn. Next, a smooth-talking hacker, impersonating the employee, called the MGM Tech Help Desk and convinced them to reset his password. With that, the hacker was inside MGM’s computers and unleashed the destructive malware. It was the cybercriminal’s version of an Ocean’s Eleven heist. MGM’s biggest competitor, Caesars, admitted it also suffered a social engineering attack around the same time, suspected by the same group. But Caesars paid a ransom, reportedly $15 million, and suffered no disruptions. In 2021 there was a similar attack on Colonial Pipeline, which caused gas shortages up and down the East Coast… and last year’s attack on UnitedHealth Group, which disrupted pharmacies nationwide.

Ransomware attacks have grown increasingly brazen. Any way you look at the numbers it’s a problem for the global economy, and for the U.S. economy, and for the security of the United States. There are estimates that global losses exceed $1 billion U.S. per year. The level of cybercrime has risen to the point where it seems overwhelming and every year it gets worse.

Advance2000 Ransomware Recovery Assurance Platform (RRAP) leverages sophisticated AI/ML to detect advanced ransomware threats, ensuring data integrity, providing an extra layer of protection and actionable insights into ransomware risks empowering teams to detect threats early and restoring operations without hesitation while validating recovery points continuously and in near real-time thus ensuring the integrity of backups and preventing the restoration of compromised data. By inspecting data off-host, RRAP ensures that only clean, ransomware-free data is available for recovery, reducing the risk of reinfection and data loss enabling organizations to identify clean recovery points quickly, minimizing recovery times and downtime providing a robust solution for ensuring reliable data recovery and minimizing the impact of ransomware attacks. With A2K-RRAP, organizations can confidently restore critical business processes, knowing their data is clean and reliable by providing a unique layer of defense for safeguarding critical data from threats that might bypass perimeter defenses.