Monday morning – it was business as usual at Sprouse Fire & Safety in Calgary and Edmonton, until right before lunch when everything stopped working. The main sales and inventory control application wouldn’t start due to server errors, and every document on the corporate data share had been encrypted by ransomware and couldn’t be opened.
The situation: The entire business was down because of a ransomware attack, and Sprouse Fire & Safety needed a quick resolution.
A call was made to their Managed Service Provider, Titan Solutions, and the Titan techs immediately began investigating to see what had gone wrong. Titan worked with Sprouse staff to quickly identify which computer which was causing the encryption, and had it isolated from the network. Operational databases were restored to working condition quickly after, without Titan even having to step foot on the premises. The company was back up and running in their main sales and inventory application – before everyone came back from lunch!
The solution: Titan Solutions quickly responded, stopping the attack in its tracks and restoring normal operation quickly in order of business priority.
“Ransomware is the latest in a series of Cyber Security Threats that face not only Sprouse but all business, large and small over the past couple of years. Companies such as MSN.COM, the New York Times, BBC.COM, the collective police departments of Illinois, Massachusetts and Tennessee as well as the City of Detroit have all been victims of Ransomware attacks with payouts to the attackers in range of several hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of these organizations employ sophisticated cyber security measures to protect their business interests.
This year Sprouse Fire and Safety joined this ever increasing list of companies that have fallen victim to such attacks.
Sprouse has partnered with Titan SG for almost a decade and during that time Titan has been always vigilant in ensuring that our business is secured against all potential internal and external threats. They perform regular reviews of our security posture to ensure that we stay ahead of the emerging threats in the industry. In the case of threats like ransomware, which are increasingly difficult to defend against, Titan Solutions had, as part of our Managed Service Contract, developed a response strategy that was well planned and well executed when we were the victim of a ransomware attack. Their (Titan SG) technical expertise, planning and incident response not only allowed Sprouse to not pay to get our data back but had us up and running in normal operation within a couple of hour.” Says Rick Mooers, Managing Director of Sprouse Fire and Safety.
“Once we identified that there was a problem our dedicated support team at Titan SG engaged to resolve the issue. Within minutes they had the network locked down, identified the infected system, purged that system and had begun a system rebuild all while restoring our data – over 80,000 files – starting with the data and systems that our staff needed immediately and within a few hours had restored us to normal operations. They were able to accomplish this through the use of a hybrid data protection strategy that employs both local (on-site) and cloud backups, covering us in a wide set of circumstances. This strategy, combined with real time monitoring of our servers and systems for failure allows Sprouse to have our systems available to us at a very cost effective price point.”
“They took a very bad situation and were able to turn it around quickly for us, we suffered very little downtime because of their quick and effective response,” says Rick. “All of the efforts in planning and recovering from this attack were included in our monthly support contract. Titan SG provides excellent value for our IT support spend. Sprouse has been approached by a number of other IT Services companies over the years and no one offers the all inclusive services at such an attractive price point as what we enjoy from Titan SG. We initially opted for a “fee for services” support model where we paid hourly for support and then moved to a Managed Support model that harmonized our monthly support costs which has allowed us to budget more effectively.”
“Titan SG always picks up the phone right away, regardless of the time of day or night, and delivers a quick and effective resolution to whatever issue we have – whether remotely or by coming onsite. Our staff love working with them and we are in great hands,” says Rick “Titan SG makes IT purchasing decisions easy by providing a complete offering of hardware and software at very competitive prices. As we continue to expand our business we need to add new systems but don’t want to spend the time price shopping IT hardware. Titan SG has earned our trust so we never have to worry about purchasing new equipment. We know that the price is always spot on.”
The threat of ransomware and other attacks is very real, and businesses of all size are targets. Titan Solutions can help any business identify holes and risks in their security, implement effective policies, and provide training to keep your business safe and running without disruption. Contact Titan Solutions Group at (403) 537-5850 or info@titansg.ca today to receive the same unbeatable IT support services enjoyed by Sprouse Fire & Safety.
