R-Score Public Service Initiative for Ransomware Recovery From HYCU

Hycu, Inc. announced a public service to help organizations identify and measure their ability to recover in the inevitable event of a ransomware attack.

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Ransomware attacks have been occurring at an alarming rate over the past 18 months with an attack happening on average every 11s ^{[ 1]}. Available as a free service, directly from GetRScore.org, R-Score is the culmination of months of work with data protection and cybersecurity experts and partners.

“It’s become a tired cliché that it’s not a matter of if but when a company will be faced with a ransomware recovery incident,” said Simon Taylor, founder and CEO, HYCU. “As much as all of us in technology would like to believe we can eliminate ransomware attacks, the focus needs to be on rallying the industry around a way of quantifying and measuring what steps can, and should, be taken to avoid having to pay exorbitant ransoms for companies to get their data back. Today we are extremely excited to announce R-Score along with our supporting partners.”

In less than 10mn, any organization that is interested in understanding how ready they are to recover from a ransomware attack can get their R-Score at GetRScore.org. R-Score represents a first of its kind assessment tool that scores an organizational ransomware recovery readiness similar to the way Fair and Isaac set up the FICO scoring system more than thirty years ago.

R-Score uses entered data to assess organization’s preparedness to repel and recover from ransomware attacks in 5 categories:

• Backup process 

• Backup infrastructure 

• Security and networking 

• Restore processes, and 

• DR  

Once the questions are answered, an R-Score is generated within a range of 0 to 1,000. In addition to the score, users will get steps to take to improve their overall score. No user data or information related to generating the initial R-Score is stored or captured in any user identifiable form. A free consultation is available to better understand what measures and steps could be taken to improve an organization’s overall R-Score.

“There has always been more of a focus around backup in the industry vs. what companies really care about which is recovery,” said Enrique Salem, partner, Bain Capital Ventures LLC, which led HYCU’s $87.5 million series A round earlier this year. “Industry-wide initiatives like R-Score that allow organizations to better prepare themselves in the inevitable event of a recovery in light of ransomware need to be more widely adopted and applauded.”

“Ransomware has reached intolerable levels and is a risk that every company needs to address,” said Kevin Mandia, CEO, FireEye Mandiant. “R-Score is designed to provide a framework to measure resiliency and recovery. These are critical components to combatting ransomware actors and giving business leaders confidence that they are prepared to operate in the current threat environment.“

“Carahsoft is honored to be involved in the R-Score public service initiative to support ransomware recovery,” said Craig P. Abod, president, Carahsoft Technology Corp. “As the Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, we support an ecosystem of 200+ cybersecurity and data protection vendors, including HYCU. While there are a variety of resources, reports, and ways to learn how to protect at-risk data, an agency’s ability to recover should a ransomware attack happen is often left under-addressed or untested. R-Score focuses on these issues, helping agencies develop a current security and data protection strategy. We’re excited to work with HYCU and all the supporting companies on ransomware recovery and the launch of R-Score.”

“To solve the toughest business challenges and transform the way in which we all work, there are no simple cookie cutter solutions,” said Tony Safoian, president and CEO, Sada, Inc. “If dealing with the pervasive nature of ransomware has taught us anything, it’s that you need to be ready and prepared in the event of a recovery. We’re proud to support the introduction of R-Score. R-Score is bringing the best and brightest minds together across the industry to help educate, manage and ready companies in the inevitability of an attack. As we work with our customers to address security at scale, this will become a useful way in which we monitor and measure progress.“

“Ransomware is the most significant cyber-threat faced by private and government organizations,” said Kevin Powers, JD, founder and director, ‘Cybersecurity Graduate Programs’, Boston College and Cybersecurity Research Affiliate, MIT Sloan School of Management (CAMS). “And that is exactly why cybersecurity experts and leaders from private industry, government, and academia came together to develop “R-Score” – a free, online service to assist all organizations in protecting their business operations, customer and employee sensitive personal data, IP, and other confidential and proprietary information. By using R-Scores’ interactive platform, information security teams, and, most importantly, senior executives and Boards of Directors, will be able to get key insights as to their cyber-readiness through R-Scores’ easy to follow dashboards and grading system. No doubt, the free R-Score service is a much welcome and needed tool for all private and government organizations in defending vs. today’s unrelenting cyber and ransomware attacks.”

“Rackspace Technology is very excited to partner with and support HYCU’s launch of R-Score to help customers understand their preparedness for data loss and recovery,” said Zachary Symm, product manager, public cloud, Rackspace Technology, Inc. “Data recovery is paramount to companies when it comes to ransomware and for far too long it has been overlooked.”

“ESG Research shows that cyber risk and Ransomware are top of mind for IT professionals,” said Christophe Bertrand, senior analyst, ESG Global. “Yet also an area of technology faced with many challenges. It is only a matter of time before a remedial recovery from Ransomware is needed, and that’s why it is key to build a cyber resilience infrastructure with strong recovery capabilities. It starts with knowing what to do, understanding the strengths and vulnerabilities of the current recovery processes and how to evolve them to support cyber resilience.”

“Every organization has minimally heard about ransomware and too many have been affected by it,” said Jerome Wendt, founder and president, DCIG, LLC. “However, knowing how best to shore up your internal data protection and recovery solutions to defend and recover from ransomware presents major challenges. R-Score addresses these concerns. Organizations may assess their ransomware readiness preparedness capabilities in about 15 minutes. Once completed, organizations get a list of key vulnerabilities and steps they can take to counter ransomware’s impact. “

“With ransomware constantly in the news, many organizations simply don’t know where to even begin a comprehensive risk assessment to determine their overall susceptibility to becoming the next victim, let alone create a full mitigation plan,” said Scott D. Lowe, CEO and co-founder, ActualTech Media. “R-Score provides a framework for organizations of any size and complexity to quickly gauge their risk and get actionable direction that can help them take immediate steps to improve their risk profile. R-Score takes tried and true ransomware defense strategies and boils them down into a clear, coherent series of steps based on an abundance of expertise from the service’s network of partners.”

^[1] Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybercrime Magazine, 2019