Got hit with ransomware at 2am on a Tuesday and it ruined my whole week

I work in IT for a small medical office in Des Moines and last month someone clicked a phishing link in an invoice email. By the time I got the alert at 2am, the ransomware had encrypted 12 years of patient records across three servers. The backups were corrupted too because the backup drive was mapped as a network drive like an idiot. I had to call the owners at 4am and tell them we might be screwed. We ended up paying $5,000 in bitcoin to get the key because the recovery company said it would take weeks otherwise. The whole week was just me staying up late rebuilding servers and rethinking every security policy we had. Has anyone else dealt with a ransomware attack that started from a single dumb click?

2 comments

2 Comments

stella3071mo ago

Oh man, that's brutal! I feel your pain so much. My small business (a little graphic design studio I run from home) got hit last year from a single click on a fake Dropbox link. I thought I was being careful, you know? But it was 11pm on a Sunday and I just wanted to finish a project. Woke up to all my client files encrypted, even my scanned tax docs from three years ago. The worst part was the recovery company wanted $3,000 and I had to explain to my biggest client why their logo files were gone for a week. I ended up paying the ransom too because rebuilding from scratch would have taken way longer. It's amazing how one dumb click can just wreck everything you've built for years.

nathan_webb1mo ago

Man that's rough. I had a buddy who ran a small landscaping business and same thing happened to him. He lost all his customer records and job photos from like five years of work. The worst part is you beat yourself up over it forever like should I have known better. But honestly who hasn't been there at 11pm on a Sunday just trying to get stuff done. People don't realize how much those ransomware guys count on us being tired and distracted.