Manufacturing & Construction
Langs Building Supplies Stops Ransomware Attack Due to a Next-Gen Backup Solution
25 min
1 hr
Zero
Overview
“Having a top-notch data management solution in place means I can go about my day-to-day job without worrying about data loss. I know I have it covered,” says Matthew Day, ICT and Support Manager at Langs Building Supplies, a leading manufacturer and supplier of products for the construction industry based in Stapylton, Queensland, Australia. The business was recently hit by a ransomware attack. Due to its effective backup infrastructure, the company was able to thwart the threat and restore its data without paying a ransom.
Matthew Day discusses how Langs Building Supplies relied on Rubrik's instant recovery and API-first architecture to stop a Ransomware attack. With Rubrik, Day recovered ransomed files and resumed business in less than an hour.
Having a top-notch data management solution in place means I can go about my day-to-day job without worrying about data loss. I know I have it covered.
Matthew Day
ICT and Support Manager![]()
Challenges
- Ransomware attack on system through email link
- One production file server infected by CryptoLocker
- 15,000 files encrypted
Results
- Able to write a script to restore files back to the VM from the latest version of the file within 25 minutes
- Had production servers normalized and running in an hour
- No data lost
The Solution
- API-first architecture
- Global real-time file search
- Converged data management for backup and recovery
Challenges
The growing threat of ransomware
Ransomware is a special type of malware in which an attacker holds users’ data hostage until a ransom is paid. Many forms of ransomware use strong cryptography to encrypt a victim’s data using an encryption key known only to the attacker. After a specified length of time, the attacker deletes the encryption key, and the victim’s data is lost forever. Even if the victim pays the attacker prior to this deadline, the attacker may or may not provide the victim with the required decryption key. Ransomware attacks are increasing exponentially. There has been a reported average of over 4,000 ransomware attacks per day since January 1, a 300-percent increase over the approximately 1,000 attacks per day in 2015. The usual victims are in industries where accessing a computer is required for critical activities. Usually, they don’t have modern technologies in place everywhere and end up paying the ransom in order to regain access to their data. In the past, there has been no effective way to get around these attacks, and the frequency of ransomware attempts are increasing.
You need to have not only end user education and group policies, but also disconnected backups being managed by a system that is totally separate from your production environment, so no attack can get to them. That’s where Rubrik steps in.
Matthew Day
ICT and Support Manager![]()
Solutions
Ransomware attack prevented due to next-gen data management solution
After receiving an alert from the monitoring system, Day was able to isolate the affected VDI desktop and prevent the attack from spreading to the rest of the firm’s infrastructure. “We were able to write a script to restore files back to the VM from the latest version of the file because of our backup. We had all of our files back to the file server in approximately one hour. No damage done,” stated Day.
“There was no potential for real long-term financial damage because we have Rubrik. We have systems in place to cover these eventualities. You need to have not only end-user education and group policies, but also disconnected backups being managed by a system that is totally separate from your production environment, so no attack can get to them. That’s where Rubrik steps in,” said Day.
The best way to mitigate ransomware attacks is a defense-in-depth by integrating security with data protections. As Day explains, “You’ll always have weaknesses. That’s why you need rock-solid data management. You always have to be moving forward instead of looking back. Since we plan for these failures, this threat was reduced to a minor convenience. The next day, it was like nothing happened.”
Our converged backup appliance really helps manage our data. It can easily manage and protect our VMs, set our protection policies as general or as granular as we want, and search across our data protected for specific VMs, objects, or specific files to restore.
Matthew Day
ICT and Support Manager![]()
The Results
There were a few key aspects to Langs Building Supplies’ data management solution that allowed them to mitigate a potentially damaging situation:
Quick Restore
Programmatic Interface & API-driven
Modern technology
Incremental-forever
IN KONTAKT