Introduction
At Elastio, we’re focused on ensuring businesses can recover from ransomware attacks because it’s not a matter of if — it’s when. Ransomware tactics have become so advanced that companies with enterprise-level protections and sophisticated security tools are vulnerable.
But what happens after the attack? What does ransomware recovery look like?
We spoke with someone who lived through a major ransomware attack to learn more about the experience and the hard lessons they took away. Their story highlights why recovery is the real test of resilience.
The interview below has been anonymized to protect the privacy and security of the affected company.
Interview Transcript
Can you briefly introduce your company — industry, size, and what role IT/cybersecurity plays in your business?
We’re a multi-national company with operations across several continents.
I’m part of the North American IT team, but the attack took down systems in multiple countries.
Cybersecurity was always important to us — we had enterprise-level protections in place — but the attack caught us off guard.
What was your overall cybersecurity strategy before the attack? What tools did you have in place for prevention, detection, and recovery?
We were using an integrated security platform vendor for pretty much everything — endpoint protection, email and network security, threat hunting.
On paper, we were well-protected. We thought we were covered but the sad thing is that you’re only as secure as your weakest employee. That’s one of the biggest lessons from this experience.
How did the attackers get in? Were there any warning signs?
The hackers are smart. They take advantage of you when you’re vulnerable. We had recently moved to work-from-home, which meant a broader attack surface and more gaps in visibility. They knew exactly how to exploit that.
They also attacked us on a Friday when a lot of people were out over the weekend. You almost have to give them credit — they played it perfectly.
How did you first discover the ransomware attack?
It was pure panic. It started with email going down. Then systems started cascading — one after another. It took us a couple of days to get a full picture of what was happening and get things moving.
We declared a state of emergency. We brought in a third party almost right away.
We were working 20 hours a day on a conference call restoring systems. Some parts of the business were down for over a month. It took us 35 days to get everything back up. Recovery took 35 days — that’s 35 days of lost productivity, lost revenue, and lost trust. Every hour down was money out the door.
What did you do to get the business back up?
We were on this conference bridge for 20 hours a day trying to find backups that weren’t encrypted because some of them got encrypted. That took a long time. In some cases, we lost days of work.
We don’t know exactly how long the hackers were in the system before they launched the full attack. They took their time, positioned themselves, and when they were ready, they triggered the attack.
That’s when we realized the problem wasn’t just the attack — it was also that our recovery plan wasn’t built for this. Backups were encrypted, so we had to scramble to find clean copies. We had hundreds of servers spread across different regions, and it took weeks to manually rebuild and restore them.
What were the biggest surprises in your recovery process?
How unprepared we were — not just in terms of prevention, but in terms of recovery.
You assume backups will save you, but when backups are corrupted or inaccessible, you’re stuck. That’s when it sinks in that recovery is the hard part.
What changes did you make after the attack?
We increased user training — spam testing, email tagging, and better employee awareness.
But we also focused on recovery preparedness – setting up more aggressive air-gapping for backups, creating a secondary hot site and running disaster recovery drills.
What advice would you give to other companies about ransomware preparedness?
Don’t assume you’re safe because you have good tools because you’re only really as secure as your weakest employee.
To that end, make sure your recovery plan is ready to go — test it, refine it, and have backups that are regularly validated and that are separate from your primary environment.
If there’s one takeaway from your experience, what would it be?
You don’t take ransomware seriously until it happens to you. Prevention is important, but recovery is where companies succeed or fail because there’s no way of guaranteeing that you won’t get hit.
When your entire business is down, the cost of losing a day is greater than the cost of investing in reliable recovery. That’s why we’ve changed how we think about resilience — it’s not about stopping the attack; it’s about surviving it.
The Takeaway
This wasn’t a negligent company—it had security tools and strategies in place. The attack succeeded because ransomware tactics have become too sophisticated, and even well-protected businesses are vulnerable.
The real lesson is that recovery matters just as much as prevention. Clean, pre-validated backups and a fast recovery plan are the difference between survival and collapse. That’s why Elastio exists—to ensure that businesses can bounce back when the worst happens.
Ensure Your Backups Are Ready When It Matters Most
Most companies don’t realize their backups are compromised until it’s too late. Elastio Ransomware Recovery Assurance Platform is designed to prevent that. Our platform uniquely inspects data for ransomware, unauthorized encryption by insider threats, file system corruption, and other recoverability threats as part of your standard backup workflow — so you know your recovery points are good before you need them.
Don’t wait for an attack to find out if you can recover — learn more about how Elastio ensures recovery readiness.
