When cyber-criminals demanded 800 bitcoins to unencrypt the Furze-Warren Hard Federation’s data, Chidi was adamant there was no way the ransom would be paid. However, he admitted that he felt frustrated, alone and powerless after ransomware swept through the system. Chidi said: “Redstor really saved my bacon. I was on a cliff edge and only needed a little push to go over.”
The ransomware got in via a remote-access resource that allowed teachers to upload and download files from home. Chidi said: “During the process something hitched a ride and encrypted everything, even the local backups. Nothing was working for the schools. “Everything was messed up on the domain controller and file server. Group policies were not pushing down, users could not get to their home directories, to their file shares. We had printers not deploying. It was really painful. I had been using Redstor for a year so I knew I had restore points I could go to.” “I started a restore on the Sunday at about 3.30pm and by the time I came in on the Monday morning the domain controller had been restored.”
Having seen first hand the effects of viruses encrypting data, Chidi knows the value of having a data management solution that delivers reliable backup and recovery and disaster recovery, along with archiving, discovery and insight.
He said: “My head of school was very impressed because everyone was thinking ‘we’ve lost everything’.”
Chidi is also safe in the knowledge that Redstor’s InstantData is protecting the Furze-Warren Hard Federation against the impact of any further issues.