Your Office Anywhere: FAQ for customers re: Data Handling

Access to your raw data

When I receive the data from you, what should I do?

If you have chosen to receive the raw data from Your Office Anywhere, it is critical that you seek advice from an IT specialist. There is a risk that the raw data may contain malware and therefore could infect your new environment, if it isn’t properly scrubbed. You will find further guidance in this document on the risks and precautions you should take regarding the raw data.

What file format will the data be supplied in?

The data will be provided on a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) which is a format that represents a virtual hard drive. It enables users to store an entire file system in a single file, including the operating system, applications, and data.  With this format, the virtual disk can be mounted and accessed by various platforms.

Why can’t the files just be sent by email?

Typically, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of files for each customer, and often applications too. These are far too big to email.

Is it secure to send my data in this format?

If you have chosen to receive the raw data from Your Office Anywhere, we will provide you with a secure way to access the Azure cloud platform which contains your raw data.

How big will the file be?

It depends on the amount of files and applications you were storing with Your Office Anywhere. Typically, it is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of files per customer.

Will the files supplied all be viable and can be easily accessed?

If you have chosen to receive your data from Your Office Anywhere, this will be supplied as raw data. There are therefore some critical points you need to consider:

• It may include files which are not viable because they were encrypted by the Threat Actor. The number of viable files varies per customer, and it is not possible to tell what files are viable until the data has been interrogated.
• The data has not been scrubbed so there is a risk that it may still contain malware.
• We strongly recommend that you seek advice from an IT specialist before attempting to access / download your data. There is a risk the downloading the data may infect your own network / environment.

What proportion of my files will be viable?

In order to supply data to our customers as quickly as possible, we have not interrogated it to see what files are viable. We therefore have no accurate view by customer of how many files are viable.

Will it be easy for me to tell which files are/ aren’t viable?

No, unfortunately it will not be easy to see. We strongly recommend that you seek specialist advice before downloading any files to avoid downloading any malware that might be present in the files, which may infect your environment.

Will you be sending me all the files I had in the YOA environment?

You will be provided access to all your raw data – it includes every file stored with YOA, together with any applications that you held with us.

When I receive the data from you, what should I do?

It is critical that you seek advice from an IT specialist. There is a risk that the raw data may contain malware and therefore could infect your new environment, if it isn’t properly scrubbed.

What precautions should I take when handling this uncleaned data?

We strongly recommend that you seek specialist advice. Specialists will have access to tools and processes to enable them to clean and validate the data before integrating it into a new environment.

Does the data you supply pose a risk to my network?

We are suppling raw data. It is possible it still contains malware and therefore poses considerable risk to any IT environment.

Can you provide support or tools to help us clean the data effectively?

We are giving customers the option to receive raw data as this is the quickest approach.  If you wish, you can request that Your Office Anywhere does not immediately send you your data and migrates it to a new environment, when available.  The data will be cleaned by Your Office Anywhere. Or you can opt for us to send your raw data but discuss with Your Office Anywhere where the cleaned data can migrate to. Please select one of these options in the form. Please note, we do not currently have a timescale when this new environment will be available, but this will not be this week.

More broadly, the choice of what tools should be used to clean the data will depend on the nature of the data and applications hosted on the platform. Please seek specialist advice before taking action.

More broadly, we can provide some further technical details of the incident – such as the ‘vectors of attack’ and ‘indicators of compromise’ – which will help an IT specialist understand what to look out for. Please email IncidentResponse@YourOfficeAnywhere.co.uk to request this information.

As above, if you opt to receive the raw data, these files will be accessed at your own risk.

Why are you sending raw data?

Some customers requested to have their data as soon as possible and this is the quickest approach.

If you would like us to keep your data and migrate it to our new environment when ready, then please indicate this on the Microsoft Form.

Access via an alternative hosted environment

Can you clean the data before you give me access to it?

If you choose to wait until we have prepared an alternative platform, then we will clean your data before uploading it.

When do you expect my data would be available on an alternative platform?

We do not currently have a timescale when this new environment will be available, but this will not be this week.  If you opt to keep your data with us, we will keep you informed as to timescales.

How much of my data / applications do you expect to be useable?

As the number of viable files varies per customer, it is not possible to tell what files are viable until the data has been interrogated.

We have seen some cases where the majority of files have been encrypted and some where very few have been. We have also seen cases where the data is not encrypted but the application that they work with has been. If you can access an impacted application via another route, then you should be able to access those files.

How would I access the new platform you provide?

We will provide you with full details – but in essence we would expect an alternative platform to work in a similar way to the old one, so it should feel familiar to you.

How can I be assured that you will be able to handle my data securely going forward?

Your Office anywhere had made significant investments in IT security, which we were advised were best practice – as evidenced by our ISO27001 certification. However, cyber-crime is constantly evolving, and new threats emerge. We have taken further advice about the architecture and build of our new platform to do what we can to prevent a similar incident in future.