Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1269815
10 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2020 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 Cybersecurity is a necessity in every busi- ness, and this interview is a must-read for help- ing you and your company to understand vul- nerabilities and protect yourself from attacks. Remember, until an attack hits you, you have no idea how devastating it can be. Eric Cormier and Dave Ryder of Prototron address the ransomware attack that locked them out of their system last December, bring- ing business to a screeching halt and forcing them into the arduous process of a full re- build. With things finally starting to normal- ize, Eric and Dave now offer precaution- ary advice they've accumulated over the past six months. Barry Matties: Eric, to set up this conversation, your company was hit with ransomware. Somebody locked you out of your system and demanded a ransom. Eric Cormier: Yes, and it was actually Friday the 13 th in December 2019. It was not a good day. From what we've been able to trace, it came from a piece of equipment that we utilize for certain process- es in the shop. It looks like somebody got onto the internet and accidentally clicked on some links. With ransomware, what's insane about it— especially what we were hit with—is that it was built to not only infiltrate our network, but also determine the types of PCs we had in the shop in order to do the most damage. It ran from one PC, hit a couple of devices that weren't secure, and turned them into what they call "zombies," which wreaked havoc across our facility. It originated in Redmond, and because our facilities are connected in Redmond and Tucson, it branched out and hit multiple PCs and infrastructure in our Tucson facility. Because of the extent of how this soft- ware works and how advanced it was, we had to do a 50,000-foot view of shutting everything down and doing a complete rebuild. We couldn't take what we had that was still working and reuse it. We had to reinstall operating systems and go the full length of a complete infrastructure re- build. It did some seri- ous damage. And it's not necessarily some- thing that can be con- trolled from a secu- rity perspective once THINK IT COULDN'T HAPPEN TO YOU? THINK AGAIN! CYBERATTACK!