Regional Law Firm

A law firm in Houston Texas lost a valuable file server containing court documents and files needed for ongoing court dates due to a ransomware attack.

Scenario

A prominent law firm in Texas uses an excessively large file server as a repository for all case files.

This allows the client IT team to easily handle who is assigned to what case and provide access to each as needed, all handled from a single on-premises server.

As ongoing services, the client had Asgard’s ransomware warranty, managed endpoint detection and response (EDR) and cloud backup service.

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The Challenge

When the main onsite fileserver was attacked the firm couldn’t access any of its files needed for cases that afternoon. This single point of failure cascaded when the onsite backup repository hard drive failed. Added pressure came from lawyers who needed access to case files for court dates imminently.

Funds are always tight during a ransomware attack while managers immediately think about paying the ransom even though that's never a guaranteed solution.

Asgard’s cyber warranty and incident report alleviated some of the immediate confusion and costs of recovery. By starting out with a monetary boost they could worry less about the costs of recovery and focus on recovery itself. Coupled with the auto-generated incident report the client’s team was able to work cohesively and be several steps closer to recovery right out of the gate.

The onsite NAS unit failed due to aging hardware and lack of upkeep; this complicated recovery efforts by slowing recovery times by forcing Asgard to pull data from the cloud.

This forced Asgard techs to work with the lawyers at the firm to first identify needed files for immediate recovery and then look to recover the whole file server.

Added pressure was felt from the IT team that never tested or attempted any sort of failover, or data recovery effort before the incident took place despite recommendations to enact a full data recovery plan.

This made recovery efforts more complicated as Asgard techs had to explain each component and step of the process in real time.

Asgard strongly recommends following the 3-2-1 rule, 3 copies of your data, on 2 different mediums, with one offsite in the cloud.

This rule of thumb can be expanded further with a 3-2-1-1-0 rule, with the additional 1 being either offline or an air gapped copy, and the 0 being no data errors.

Enhanced monitoring of pertinent systems.

Asgard began monitoring the health of the hard drive health on the NAS unit to avoid future breakdowns.

By increasing the size of the drives on the NAS Asgard added an extra failure disk into the RAID setup. Thereby allowing 2 hard drives to fail before the system becomes inaccessible.

Implemented a Data Recovery Plan.

Though Asgard made a basic data recovery plan for them during on boarding it was not kept up due to lack of communication, after this event the IT team expressed a desire to keep it updated. Since then, Asgard continuity consultants update it with the client IT team every 6 months.

Asgard also recommended server size limitations to decrease strain on all systems during backups and solve the “single point of failure” previously experienced. By limiting servers to 2-4 TB each, backups are not slowing each other down and in return recovery efforts are not slowed down by a singularly large server.

Solution

Outcome

Clients Trust Our Work

We are rated 4.9 out of 5 for managed IT services and cloud solutions. Below are some testimonials shared by our customers. You can also check Asgard MSP ratings on Google.

Memorial Herman Health System - Testimonial

I3 Quantitative Investment Fund, LP - Testimonial

It was a very good experience

Asgard has provided unparalleled service and expertise for almost ten years helping us through a variety of challenges as well planned expansion of our business.

Larry Wedekind

CEO, IntegraNet Health

It was a very good experience

Had an excellent experience. We had a legal discovery with a close approaching deadline. We needed to restore data ASAP. I called and they walked me through it over the phone + they did remote screen sharing when I asked for it. The gentleman on the phone was A+ friendly, helpful, smart, and professional.

David Shultz

IT Director, Alliance Building

It was a very good experience

We needed the most secure modality for connecting with some of our referring physicians and Asgard’s strong tech capabilities integrated a formidable zero-trust network so we could meet HIPAA compliance as well as protect our patient data the best way possible. Strongly recommend.

CISO, Memorial Herman Health System

It was a very good experience

24/7 support, failover testing of our cloud data, and consistently staying on top of our disaster recovery plans has made Asgard a reliable partner for years now.

David Shultz

IT Director, Wastebuilt

It was a very good experience

Reliability and best-in-class managed EDR security services made us take a serious look at Asgard, but it was the financial warranty tied to our cyber security which closed the deal for us because it added an additional layer of financial coverage to ensure or business continuity.

Kevin Griffin

IT Director, I3 Quantitative Investment Fund, LP

Ensure Your Business Continuity

Regional Law Firm

Scenario

The Challenge

Solution

Outcome

100% of the files

Server was brought

$0 paid

2 hours

Clients Trust Our Work

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Company

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