Why Business Owners Need a Disaster Recovery Solution in Pinellas County

by | Jul 14, 2023 | IT Services

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In February 2023, the United States Department of Justice announced the extradition and detention of Dariy Pankov, a Russian hacker charged with cybercrime offenses perpetrated against victims in the Tampa Bay region and around the world. Pankov was accused of being the lead developer and distributor of NLBrute, a malware suite of Windows exploits designed to extract username and password credentials through unsecured instances of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

Pankov was traveling through Europe when he was arrested by Interpol agents in November 2022. He was most active from 2016 to 2019, and two of his victims in the Tampa Bay region were law firms that suffered ransomware attacks after Pankov allegedly hacked open RDP sessions to extract network credentials. The username/password combinations were later sold in underground markets for $1,000 to other hackers that used them to launch ransomware attacks. The U.S. prosecutors in this case also accuse Pankov of profiting from selling the NLBrute malware directly to active cybercrime gangs such as Netwalker.

One detail that stands out in the court documents filed by the prosecution is that the law firms hit with ransomware attacks had data backup solutions in place, but their recovery processes failed. This is a strong reminder that any disaster recovery solution in Pinellas County should be thoroughly tested not only upon installation but also periodically. Changes made to the operating system or the configuration of a network may interfere with a disaster recovery solution in Pinellas County; this is why it is crucial to test the integrity and functionality of the data restoration process from time to time.