The Hacker & The Hero

This is a story about how one manufacturing firm went from hacked and helpless to restored and compliant, with the help of Avatara’s CompleteCloud Platform.

The Breach

What’s worse than waking up on Monday morning to find out your company was hit with a ransomware that has virtually shut down your business? How about calling your IT provider for help, only to find out the infection came from them, so they’re helpless as well. That’s exactly what happened to one manufacturing company before they became an Avatara customer.

“I was one of the people saying ‘our systems are so good, this could never happen’…and then it happened,” said the company’s owner.

Fortunately—and perhaps fatefully—she had previously been in conversation with Avatara in regard to a DoD compliant solution. She knew that CompleteCloud would meet all of her company’s IT needs and was seriously considering transitioning, but the need wasn’t urgent—until now.

Panicked, unable to operate, and unsure who to turn to, she decided to take a chance and ask Avatara for help.

The Rescue Mission

After receiving the SOS call the morning of the attack, the Avatara team got to work without hesitation. We immediately contacted the company’s insurance, forensic, and legal remediation teams and formulated a plan. By Tuesday, our Director of System Architecture was on-site to make sure issues were isolated and back-ups existed, and he completed a site survey.

Within 48 hours of the attack, CompleteCloud desktops and email were up and running so they could get back to business.

By the end of the week, thin clients were delivered and set up, data restoration was moved to Avatara HQ, and JobBoss was upgraded and operational. Within just two weeks of the attacks, their network, printers, laser cutters, and Solidworks were completely migrated over to CompleteCloud.

“Avatara showed up like superman in a cape,” said the owner. “I had no idea how we were going to make it through the incident. They helped us 24/7 until our systems were restored. And we had only been a customer for a couple days; to me, that’s really good business.”

The Result

The benefits of CompleteCloud extend beyond 24/7 support, security, and compliance. Once the company was restored, they were able to take advantage of the many other features CompleteCloud offers.

“It’s also very convenient that our team can access their workstations securely from any device with CompleteCloud,” said the owner. “With new work processes that have moved offsite, our team can interact with our network seamlessly and efficiently from anywhere.”

This is not only a story of CompleteCloud’s ability to save organizations from potentially devastating cyber-attacks, but also a testament to the kind of support we provide. If you’ve ever dealt with a complete IT system overhaul, you know how impressive this recovery timeline is; almost unheard of in the industry, but standard for CompleteCloud customers.

Looking for this level of support?