Faced with some20% of clients hit by ransomware, the MSP adopted a solution that’s now a core feature of its cybersecurity package.
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Central Computer & Networks (CC&N) is a managed service provider (MSP) and computer consulting company serving small businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.
CC&N has over 120 companies that rely upon them for installing, upgrading, maintaining and repairing their computers and digital voice systems. The company also maintains and manages customer network operations and provides cybersecurity solutions.
Over the years, CC&N has witnessed many ransomware attacks targeting their clients. In fact, 20% of them have been hit by ransomware.
Ransomware attacks impact on businesses of all sizes, not only well-known brands and large enterprises, as CC&N has experienced firsthand. In fact, CC&N estimates that 20% of its customers have been hit with ransomware at one point or another.
In February 2022, one of CC&N’s clients, a law firm, experienced a ransomware attack that breached their systems. The ransomware encrypted the client’s Domain server, as well as files and data on a handful of employee computers. It was later determined that the ransomware breach most likely originated from a vulnerability in an Exchange server or from an open port in Remote Web Workplace.
Earlier, CC&N had decided to take a pre-emptive approach to ransomware attacks, rather than being put in a position of reacting to a breach that could result in weeks of recovery. They were seeking a ransomware mitigation solution that would protect client systems and data in the event of an attack, when they discovered NeuShield Data Sentinel.
Three months prior to the ransomware breach at the law firm, CC&N had deployed NeuShield Data Sentinel on the client’s Domain server and all of the employee’s computers. Using the Data Sentinel one-click recovery button, all of the employee computers that had compromised files and documents were immediately recovered. The infected Domain server system was also immediately restored with NeuShield, bringing the system back to where it was before the breach.
NeuShield is pitched as unlike endpoint security solutions that look for malware. It protects the systems, files and data, when malware, like ransomware, gets through endpoint security defenses.
“The message I always convey to my clients is, their computers, servers, phones and tablets are just devices for handling data,” said Steve Waterman, CEO, CC&N.
“That data can include documents, spreadsheets, databases, images, calendars, and any other form of important information. Their computer systems and networks all take a back seat to the data, because it holds the real value of their business. That said, they still rely upon computers and networks to enter, modify, retrieve and share data. It’s our job to protect the data and keep their systems always available.”
The law firm has dozens of Windows computers and various servers, and they rely upon CC&N for their outsourced IT.
“We installed NeuShield Data Sentinel, hoping it would deliver on the company’s promises and it did just that,” said Waterman.
NeuShield Data Sentinel reduced the impact from the breach in multiple ways. It protected the employee computers and Domain server, that would have taken a week or more to rebuild and restore. Instead, the one-click restore button brought the computers and Domain server back to their pre-breach state within minutes.
When a company falls victim to a ransomware breach, the real pain is in the lost productivity, time and money involved in restoring and rebuilding infected servers and endpoints. NeuShield significantly reduced that pain for CC&N and their client. NeuShield Data Sentinel is now a standard part of CC&N’s cybersecurity software package, which they deploy on all their client’s computer systems.
After seeing how effective NeuShield was in helping them avoid system and data losses, CC&N has expanded their Data Sentinel software licenses.
CC&N estimates for their typical client, NeuShield will save them a week or more in time and effort rebuilding systems and recovering data that would otherwise be lost from a ransomware breach.
Suffice it to say, thanks to NeuShield, the client didn’t need to consider paying a ransom.
While Data Sentinel is easy to install and deploy, CC&N also found the NeuShield technical support team to be very responsive. While mitigating the ransomware, they discovered an issue on the application’s display panel and contacted the support team. NeuShield explained that it was a policy decision that simply needed to be enabled on the server and the issue was resolved within minutes.
“Compared to other solutions, NeuShield Data Sentinel is very affordable and the solution is so unique. They really impressed us and Data Sentinel is now a core feature of our cybersecurity package,” said Waterman.
