Actually yes. The attack actually happened during the first week of the new director being there.

No, there is no indication that the old director had anything to do with it.

If I remember correctly, we were able to restore folders from the shadow copies. I certainly didn’t go file by file. I might have used a tool to do it. But as you pointed out, it’s not a proper backup so we had to do quite a bit of reconciliation to make sure we restored everything and document anything we couldn’t restore.

Yeah, shadow copies on Windows servers are snapshots of files. They allow users to see previous versions of a file.

It’s not really intended as a backup solution on its own, but some backup software does use the volume shadow copy service (VSS) to perform backups on Windows servers.

I was basically restoring files from this prompt in Windows.

Once I had to restore an entire organization from shadow copies because the IT director didn’t believe in off-site backups or using endpoint protection. The whole network got a ransomware that included the backups, but did not include the shadow copies on the main file server.

At least I got to help them build a disaster recovery procedure, and pick out a new EDR.

We are literally just posting ads here now?

I’m an American living in Canada. Black Friday happens here and it’s really weird to me. In the USA, it happens the day after Thanksgiving, which always falls on a Thursday. So Black Friday makes sense because many people have Friday off (or take it off) and so they have a day to shop for the upcoming holiday season.

In Canada, Thanksgiving does not happen on the same day as in the USA. It happens on a Monday in October. But Black Friday still happens the day after American thanksgiving, which is basically just a random Friday in November for Canadians.

The only thing I will mention is that I don’t know of any Canadian who lines up outside stores for them to open so they can snatch a crappy deal on a TV. I’m sure it happens, but I think most Canadians just need to go to work.

If it’s just a little bit off, you can use a heat gun to heat the PVC until it is a little bit bendable. Then you can gently bend it into shape so it connects to the spot you need it to. Just make sure to heat the pipe evenly from all sides and don’t kink the pipe when you bend it.