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Assess the risk footprint and security posture of key business relationships to get a handle on external risk introduced through your extended attack surface.

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Digital risk monitoring of key personnel with telemetry and risk metrics. VIPRecon provides broad coverage of social media, deep and dark web, as well as physical threat assessments.
Our Ransomware Response Readiness Assessment, Playbook and Table Top Exercise gives your organization the best chance to survive and recover.
Gain visibility of your digital footprint by reaching into the most active areas of the cyber underground.
Fully managed and tailored Threat Intelligence services that becomes an extension of your current security processes and provides real-time visibility on new threats.
Providing research and investigations into known threats, to save security teams time and stress during a cyber emergency.

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GroupSense offers a comprehensive package of services for assessing and responding to ransomware attacks, including negotiations with threat actors.
Actively researching and monitoring threats from vendors or third-party companies that can affect organizational security.
Monitoring for threats to elections, VIPs, and more on social media to proactively prevent or mitigate digital risk.
Focusing on the threats and risks that matter to your security processes and providing intelligence and insights to prevent or mitigate digital risk.
Taking the next step in security services, by proactively taking down phishing sites or anonymously interacting with threat actors to provide better intelligence.
Active monitoring of your brand's digital assets to protect its reputation and stop further brand abuse from targeting unsuspecting victims.

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Combining your cyber and fraud programs to effectively fight threat actors continually scamming or threatening assets within an organization.
Executives are prime targets for fraudulent activities, but with a proactive approach, any attacks or threats can be neutralized before causing any damage.
Governments, political parties and candidates must all act now to activate cyber threat intelligence services to harden their information security and get ahead of inevitable cyber threats to the election process.
2 min read

The Ransomware Pandemic that COVID Started

Oct 15, 2021 9:45:00 AM

By Kurtis Minder, CEO, GroupSense

During the pandemic a parallel threat began permeating, driven partially by COVID itself. Ransomware attacks have increased exponentially over the last year and a half, impacting businesses of every size and profile. Yet, many companies believe it won’t happen to their business. For every Colonial Pipeline on the news there are thousands of small-to-medium enterprises impacted. Many of these go unreported.

Ransomware is not new. Some of the earliest iterations of ransomware attacks occurred as far back as the 1980s, using floppy disks and money orders. In the early 2000s it shifted to internet-based attacks and gift cards. Ransomware evolved and accelerated around 2010 with the advent of cryptocurrency. This afforded the attackers ease of transacting, anonymity, and was devoid of regulatory oversight. As ransoms went up, the frequency of attacks also increased. The latest surge has been impacted by the reduced sophistication required to carry out attacks, and the COVID remote work model. Because of this, remote workers will be the main target of cybercriminals throughout 2021 (Security Magazine, 2020.)

Today, Executing ransomware requires very little technical aptitude. A would-be attacker only needs the capability to access the dark web, where one can buy stolen network access from any number of businesses and then license ransomware deployment capability from Ransomware-as-a-Service platforms. The attack surface of victims is also plentiful, as many companies set-up remote access to provide systems connectivity to remote workers without proper security controls.
 
As a ransomware negotiator, I have had the bittersweet job of being in the middle of these attacks. My team and I are brought in post-attack to help businesses assess the business impact and understand the adversary, so that the impacted business can decide whether to engage with the ransomware operator. Should the business decide to do so, myself and my team act as a liaison, assisting with the negotiation, compliance, and settlement. While we have worked with some of the largest, newsworthy companies, it is the small-to-medium enterprises that concern me the most, as those businesses’ ability to recover from the operational, public relations, and breach fines are minimal.
 
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Topics: News Blog Ransomware
Kurtis Minder

Written by Kurtis Minder

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