BACKGROUND
Our client, an accounting firm, faced a severe ransomware attack that left their operations at a standstill. Critical data encrypted by the attack included financial records, client information, and proprietary data. The firm’s existing IT infrastructure and security measures were unable to prevent or mitigate the attack, leading to significant operational and reputational damage.
PROBLEM
The primary challenges that the KTI team were called in to resolve included:
- Rapidly diagnose the extent of the breach and encryption
- Ensuring a complete and secure recovery of encrypted data
- Rebuilding the client’s IT infrastructure to be more resilient against future cyber threats
- Restoring the client’s confidence in their digital security measures
SOLUTION
Upon engagement, KTI immediately activated our incident response protocol, first conducting a thorough assessment of the network to identify the ransomware strain and extent of the infection. We quickly isolated affected systems to prevent further spread, and safeguard unaffected data and systems.
Upon successful containment, the KTI team then pivoted to phase two: identifying and recovering clean data from recent backups, while other systems were meticulously rebuilt from the ground up to ensure they were free from ransomware. This system included the reinstallation of operating systems and applications, followed by the restoration of data.
RESULTS
KTI collaborated with the company’s IT team with a focus on maintaining highly accurate documentation and runbooks. KTI played an active role in change management, ensuring that configurations, data, and procedures were always accurately captured and of high quality, thereby saving the internal team a great deal of time. As the IT team onboarded and offboarded companies in the group, the system automatically detected new assets and generated tasks that required human input, promoting consistency and quality. The system was not only utilized as an effective measure to secure corporate systems during staff changes but became the gold standard for referencing configurations and credentials the entire department.
Results:
Post-recovery, the firm was able to resume full operations within a remarkably short timeframe and with minimal data loss. The company then partnered with KTI to implement a wholistic security infrastructure overhaul, that included:
- The deployment of advanced endpoint protection, email filtering solutions, and network security measures
- 24/7, 365 monitoring across the firm’s endpoints and network to proactively detect and respond to anomalies when they occur
- Extensive employee training on recognizing and responding to cyber threats.
- Instituting a schedule of regular security audits to assess and improve the security posture.
These measures significantly bolstered the accounting firm’s defenses against future cyber threats. Client confidence was carefully restored, and the firm is now better prepared and informed about the importance of cybersecurity.
CONCLUSION
The successful recovery and security overhaul KTI facilitated for the accounting firm demonstrated KTI’s expertise in crisis management, technical proficiency, and commitment to client success. The firm engaged KTI for ongoing support, and project work.