The Challenge
In March, a local law firm in Birmingham experienced a devastating ransomware attack that encrypted critical client and corporate data, compromising sensitive information and bringing business operations to a screeching halt.
The firm lacked internal skilled resources and expertise from Cybersecurity professionals to handle the incident effectively, putting their operations, client trust and their broader reputation within the local community at risk.
Solution
The firm sought assistance from Applied Cloud and guidance on how to address the challenges and bring their environment back online safely in the timeliest fashion. Applied Cloud landed experts on the ground and quickly performed an impact assessment of the incident to determine the full extent of the breach and identify the full scope of compromised applications and data.
The team rapidly implemented full containment and network isolation measures, as a first step, to prevent further spread of the ransomware. Phased data restoration activities staggered over 3 days ensured the most business critical files and data were recovered to ensure the lights were kept on.
Rebuilding and hardening Active Directory – the keys to the kingdom consumed the most effort. Our team of Cybersecurity experts built new domain controllers, re-established user accounts and applied more rigorous security configurations driven and informed by a thorough security audit to resulting invulnerability-free Active Directory environment.
Outcome
By deploying a team of Applied Cloud experts, the firm was able to achieve a successful recovery of the AD environment in just 6 hours as well as a full restoration of core business applications, critical files and financial data, minimising the window of impact to just 3 days.
To learn more – read our detailed guidance on how to secure your domain controllers.