That bad week in 2019 when our whole office got hit with a ransomware attack

I remember getting in on a Tuesday morning and finding all our files renamed to .encrypted with a note demanding $5,000 in Bitcoin. Turned out someone clicked a phishing email pretending to be from our CEO asking for 'urgent invoice review.' Has anyone else dealt with that sinking feeling when you realize your backups were also encrypted because they were connected to the network?

2 comments

2 Comments

marywells22d agoMost Upvoted

Did your IT team actually check the backup connection before setting it up? That same exact thing happened to us, and it was a total nightmare trying to explain to management why our "secure" backups were useless. We ended up paying the ransom because we had no other choice, and even then the decryption tool they sent corrupted half our data on purpose. The whole thing taught me never to trust any file that comes through email without calling the person first.

saraho4822d agoMost Upvoted

Woah that's rough, I feel for you. Reminds me of when my buddy tried to "fix" his own car's transmission by watching YouTube videos. He spent a whole weekend on it, ended up with more parts on the ground than in the engine bay, and had to pay triple what it would've cost just to get it towed to a shop. Same kind of thing with backups, I guess. People always think they can shortcut the testing part and then boom, they're in a worse spot than before. Just goes to show that even the best plan can fall apart if you don't check the little things before it's too late.