Heard Colonial Pipeline will be back up within a week's time. That means that SOMEBODY paid the ransom.
@DCPatriot Well no...
I dunno nothing about critical data in that field - But most control machinery doesn't change much and is very probably imaged. I know if it were me I would have those systems imaged... So literally, 20 minutes to bring a box back up to operational. That'd be the lion's share of it.
If they had to pay, their IT department needs to die.
You could completely trash my system and I would have all 9 (or so) machines back up and running pretty much in a half day. At least back to operational.
My big data is backed up off-site and here, air-gapped. My intermediate data is backed up off site and here, air-gapped. That brings me through the 1st QTR 2021... All of that cannot be harmed.
All I really need to worry about is volatile critical data... which is backed to the web daily, is on two laptops, and two desktops - Not all of which are likely to be on at the same time, and it is backed manually to an otherwise air-gapped USB drive from either my laptop or my desktop every night before I shut down.
The place could literally burn to the ground, and other than hardware, I wouldn't lose a single dang thing. Heck, now that our server is down in Costa Rica, the friggin US could burn down and I would still be fine. And I am a one-horse, small potatoes guy.
Corporate IT should be well advanced of me.