Lost my whole photo archive to a ransomware attack back in 2017

I was sitting in a coffee shop in Austin when my laptop screen went black and a ransom note popped up demanding $500 in Bitcoin. I had backups, but they were on an external drive that was plugged in at the same time, so it got encrypted too. Ended up paying $200 to a data recovery service that pulled most of my files from the drive's raw sectors. Has anyone else had a backup strategy fail on them in a dumb way like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

james_campbell1211d ago

Goddamn, that's a rough one. Keeping your backup drive plugged in during the attack is exactly the kind of thing that gets you, it's such a simple mistake but it totally screws you over. I had a similar moment where my external drive failed right when I needed it, just dead, no warning, and I lost years of photos. The raw sector recovery thing is interesting though, I always heard that was a last ditch effort but glad it worked out for you mostly. Sucks that we all think we're being careful only to find out we're not.

bennett.vera11d ago

Right there with you, had the exact same thing happen with my own family photos.

taraanderson7d ago

2008 was the year I lost my entire music collection to a lightning strike that fried my external drive, so I gotta push back a little here lol. I actually think keeping your backup drive plugged in during an attack can be smart if you've got a good surge protector and you're doing regular snapshots, because at least you'll catch the corruption faster. @bennett.vera your family photos getting hit sucks, but honestly raw sector recovery is super risky and can make things way worse if the drive has physical damage, I'd rather just accept the loss and start fresh than mess with that stuff.