{"id":14678,"date":"2026-11-11T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14678"},"modified":"2026-11-05T08:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T13:52:19","slug":"are-backups-enough-to-recover-from-a-ransomware-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14678","title":{"rendered":"Are Backups Enough to Recover From A Ransomware Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pld-like-dislike-wrap pld-template-1\">\r\n    <div class=\"pld-like-wrap  pld-common-wrap\">\r\n    <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\" class=\"pld-like-trigger pld-like-dislike-trigger  \" title=\"\" data-post-id=\"14678\" data-trigger-type=\"like\" data-restriction=\"cookie\" data-already-liked=\"0\">\r\n                        <i class=\"fas fa-thumbs-up\"><\/i>\r\n                <\/a>\r\n    <span class=\"pld-like-count-wrap pld-count-wrap\">    <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Malware attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and ransomware attacks especially so. The latest round of ransomware doesn&#8217;t just encrypt the data on your hard drive, it makes it impossible to recover using backups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleepingcomputer.com\/news\/security\/ransomware-has-a-new-target-is-your-backup-ready\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.bleepingcomputer.com\/news\/security\/ransomware-has-a-new-target-is-your-backup-ready\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This article<\/a> on BleepingComputer describes the latest twist. Ransomware now encrypts you&#8217;re backups as well. This means that whether you pay or not, and whether you receive the encryption key from the ransomers, you can no longer count on your backups as a recovery option. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What you can do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve been following a specific backup strategy for as long as I&#8217;ve been making backups, and it will not only improve the odds of surviving a ransomware attack, it can serve to provide an early warning system. And it&#8217;s really simple. Really, really simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m assuming that, since you&#8217;re reading this article, you&#8217;re making backups. But do you actually test those backups to ensure that they are usable? I do, every time. Plus I use multiple backups. I have a large internal hard drive, and an external USB hard drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have a schedule on which I take the USB backup drive to my safe deposit box. But, before I do that, I check it to see if I can restore some critical files to my systems. This ensures that the files on the backup drive can be read and copied to another drive or system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also check the internal, non-removable drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the key point here is that I keep at least one tested backup <strong><em>offline<\/em><\/strong> with a significant air gap and not accessible to anyone at all times. I use 4 external hard drives in regular rotation, so I have 3 backups that have all been tested and which are known to be good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s simple, easy, and not very many organizations do it. There&#8217;s always the assumption that the backups are fine. Don&#8217;t fall into that trap. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t count on it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[346,5,764,994],"tags":[995,996],"class_list":["post-14678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backups","category-linux","category-malware","category-ransomware","tag-ransomware","tag-recovery"],"modified_by":"David Both","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14678"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14729,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14678\/revisions\/14729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}