[grobdriver]

because the ransomware also encrypted the known good backups.

Foolish for back ups to be anywhere except secure and off site (and not network drives).

VM images make short work of restores. It doesn't have to be painful.

[Alas Babylon!]

Absolutely.

One cheap USB drive to store a system image and/or VM vhd.

Seagate and WD USB 1TB drives at Amazon for 44 bucks.

Isn’t FReeping worth it?

[I cannot think of a name]

“Foolish for back ups to be anywhere except secure and off site (and not network drives).”

No longer true. We are triple backed up. One B/U, and B/U offsite. These programs now have timers before they execute. Our backups are continuous. One every half hour, the other one every hour. When we got hit, the first one executed and started on our primaries. The second one started on our local backups. Our IT group was doing some work on the system, and so the downtown back up didn’t start for about and hour and a half.

When they realized we were hit, the called downtown and pulled the plug. It was really more luck than anything else that we were able to save those servers.