International rescue by Commercial’s team of IT experts

chalking off a notable first

Expert Engineer in the Nordics within 36 hours of emergency call

Commercial’s team of IT experts have chalked off a notable first, by crossing international borders to help an organisation recover from a cyber-attack.

Following a ransomware attack in the Nordics, Commercial were contacted by a Global Cyber Incident Response provider to help the victims of the attack. Within 36 hours of the call, a Commercial IT expert was on the ground in the Nordics and immediately working to restore systems.

Trusted business resumption partner

Commercial’s head of support services, Tom Yoxall, said: “A Global Incident Response provider contacted us as Commercial are their trusted business resumption partner.

“When the client identified the issue on a Thursday afternoon it was vital that we got boots on the ground as quickly as possible as they were unable to operate at all. Our engineer was onsite on Saturday morning and immediately working alongside the Global Incident Response provider to restore services.”

In a team effort, the Global Incident Response provider worked to identify how the cyber criminals were able to access the client’s network and then contain the threats, before Commercial set about rebuilding and restoring the system – a task that according to industry data from Statista can typically take as long as 22 days.

Working again within four days

Commercial worked at speed to ensure downtime, and loss of revenue, was kept to an absolute minimum.

Tom added: “We were able to successfully recover the encrypted data. Once this was restored, the servers were checked to make sure they were ‘clean’ and met best practice with security updates being applied where necessary.

“Within four days of the initial deployment, the business was back working at a good capacity, with all the key systems being available to staff.”

Prevention, better than cure

This is the first example of Commercial being called upon to head overseas to help a client, but Tom expects it won’t be the last as the threat of cyber criminals grows exponentially each year.

There were a reported 500million ransomware attacks globally in 2022. And as cyber criminals become ever more resourceful, Tom says it’s vital for all organisations to be as prepared as they can be if the worst happens.

“There is no single ‘silver bullet’ solution and organisations do need to adopt a layered approach to cyber security in order to mitigate the impact of an attack,” he said.

“Commercial can help any organisation adopt good cyber security controls. You do need to start with the basics. These should include strong password policies, multi-factor authentication and adopted and tested business continuity plans. You can then start to add Endpoint Detection and Response technologies and other solutions.”