Ransomware & Cyber Extortion Incident Response
When the files are encrypted and the clock is running, a calm operator who has been here before.
The first hours of a ransomware event decide the next six months. Panic spreads the damage: people pull the wrong plug, destroy the evidence you need, or pay before anyone knows what was actually taken. I bring order to that hour.
Containment, forensics, and recovery run in parallel, not in sequence. While your team stops the spread, I reconstruct how they got in, what they touched, and whether data left the building — the facts you need before any decision about payment, disclosure, or law enforcement gets made.
- Immediate containment and scoping to stop lateral spread without destroying evidence
- Forensic reconstruction of initial access, dwell time, and lateral movement
- Data-exfiltration determination — what left, and the proof behind the answer
- Secure, staged recovery and rebuild from a known-clean baseline
- Threat-actor and variant identification tied to current intelligence
- Negotiation strategy and communications advisory where extortion is in play
- Regulatory, disclosure, and law-enforcement coordination support
- Post-incident hardening so the same door does not open twice
I plug into your crisis as a steady operator with a defined playbook: triage, preserve, contain, recover, harden. Everything is documented to a forensic standard so that insurers, regulators, and counsel can rely on it, and so the lessons actually stick after the fire is out.
Every engagement runs under a signed NDA and, where testing is involved, a Safe Harbor agreement. Legal and ethical, start to finish.
- A forensic timeline of the intrusion from first access to detonation
- A defensible exfiltration assessment for legal, regulatory, and insurer use
- A recovery and hardening roadmap that closes the originating gap for good
Should we pay the ransom?+
That is your decision with counsel, not mine to make for you. My job is to give you the facts — what was taken, whether backups are viable, who the actor is — so the decision is informed rather than forced by panic.
How fast can you engage?+
Active extortion events are treated as emergencies. Reach me on an encrypted channel and we move immediately; retained clients get a pre-agreed response path.
Hire me for Ransomware & Cyber Extortion Incident Response.
Signed NDA and Safe Harbor on every engagement. Projects from five figures to nine. Discreet, relentless, done right.
I only do legal, ethical hacking — under a Safe Harbor contract and NDA.