Analysis: Nevada State Govt Ransomware Attack, Response, and Costs

Nevada State Govt Ransomware Attack

Nevada Ransomware Attack

The State of Nevada's recent ransomware incident provides sharp lessons on common attack chains and the power of internal defense. Though the state recovered successfully without paying the ransom, they ended up paying for it in downtime and recovery costs.

Here's a breakdown of the critical failures and successful strategies:

The Attack Chain: From Ad Click to Encryption

1. Initial Breach: An employee searched for a system administration tool, clicked a malicious search advertisement, and downloaded a malicious utility, creating a hidden backdoor.

2. Failed Defense: Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) quarantined the initial malware, but the persistence mechanism the attackers had established remained active, allowing them to maintain access.

3. Final Preparation: Over several months, attackers moved laterally, stole credentials for 26 admin accounts, and critically, deleted all backup volumes just before deploying the ransomware.

   
   

The Cost of NOT Paying the Ransom

• No Ransom Paid: Nevada stood firm, relying on internal teams and expert vendors.

• The Cost of Recovery: However the recovery required 4,212 hours of paid overtime by 50 state employees ($259,000 in wages), plus over $1.3 million in external incident response and rebuild costs.

• Success: The state restored 90% of impacted data and services in 28 days.

  
  

Key Takeaways for Your Security

The attack entry point was a single malicious ad click. So of course increasing awareness of malvertising is a must. But filtering out ads entirely on your corporate devices is better.

• Block Ads on Corporate Devices: Use DNS filtering that prevents users from going to ad/sponsored links, a browser that blocks ads by default (like Brave), or at least a browser plugin like uBlock Origin.

• Scrutinize Sponsored Results: Malicious actors often pay to have their fraudulent sites appear above legitimate results. Always hover over a link (or right-click to copy the link address) and check the actual URL against the known, correct domain before clicking. Misspellings or extra dashes/suffixes are major red flags.

• Use an Approved Software Inventory: Establish an official inventory of software approved for your staff to use, including direct links to download each. This prevents your users from going to Google in the first place to find the tool they need.

  
  

Bonus: Best Practices for Air-Gapped Backups

The final act of the attacker was deleting backups. An effective defense requires an immutable and segmented backup strategy:

• The 3-2-1 Rule Plus 1: Store at least 3 copies of your data on 2 different media types, with 1 copy offsite—and add 1 immutable, air-gapped copy.

• True Air Gap: Ensure your most critical backup is physically or logically isolated (not addressable from the production network). This means not only placing backups on a separate network segment but also requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) and a separate, time-bound service account that only connects briefly to perform the backup and then disconnects.

• Immutable Storage: Configure backup repositories to use WORM (Write Once, Read Many) or immutability settings, which prevent any account—even administrators—from modifying or deleting the data for a set retention period.

  
  

Next Steps

Are you confident your staff won't make the same mistakes Nevada did? Do you have any of the defensive measures we mentioned above in place? Do you have enough visibility into your tech to even know if your protections are working?

If you have any doubts, contact Fountainhead Cyber today and Fortify Your Future!