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Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

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Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#81
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its really important. Airgap. Or VM-Wrapped with restore points. I completely understand that somebody does not want to upgrade into the warp-abyss-abomination of modern windows, especially if huge expenses software was written once, that needs backwards compatability or contains sensitive data. You can not use windows if you work for anything with sensitive data. In todays world the legacy is the good stuff. Just…

An airgapped system is one that's basically unusable because you can't communicate with other systems.

[deleted]

Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#82
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its really important. Airgap. Or VM-Wrapped with restore points. I completely understand that somebody does not want to upgrade into the warp-abyss-abomination of modern windows, especially if huge expenses software was written once, that needs backwards compatability or contains sensitive data. You can not use windows if you work for anything with sensitive data. In todays world the legacy is the good stuff. Just…

An airgapped system is one that's basically unusable because you can't communicate with other systems.

A system can be more than one computer, i.e. mainframe. Airgapped systems can include multiple computers that are disconnected from external networks. They can be very useful for specialized applications.

Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#83

What crypto are Ransomware asking for these days? After all the Bitcoin mixers seem to be taken offline (have they?). Sorry, I'm kinda out of the loop and was wondering how these thugs were cashing their attacks.

You don't need a mixer. There are plenty of ways to sell large amounts of BTC 'over the counter' in other countries.

SEC says that Do Kwon sold 10000 BTC to a Swiss Bank.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/do-kwon-tapped-...

Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#84

It's been quite a few years since I did this kind of stuff for a living, so this may be an antiquated notion... "In my day," desktop computers saved their files to a server. That server would get backed up daily. The backup tapes/drives would be stored offline and rotated to an offsite location. (Back then you were more concerned about the building burning down than a ransomware attack.) The same would be true for an…

There is no longer any discipline around filesize and data. People regularly attach huge files and have terabytes of useless data in databases. This makes daily backups prohibitively expensive for most orgs.

Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#85
post #79
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does not say anything about Oakland negotiating. They may just be in the "it takes some time" phase at the moment. Tapes are not exactly the fastest medium. Plus, you may want to determine the exact time at which you were compromised, or else you'll be restoring potentially tainted backups. Depending on how well you're organized that alone will take quite some time, especially considering that your logs m…

This right here, the company I work for did some back of the napkin calculations for restoration times for archival storage (tape) and determined that it’d take us 2 days to restore minimum and up to 7 days to restore if the queues were full. This was with Azure and a relatively small amount of data (around 6TB). We’re using their immutable storage option, with a 60 day window with multiple rotation intervals, and ju…

For regular backups of 6TB why would you even consider tape? Seriously asking because I have priced tapes and the break even point vs hard drives is high.

Re: Oakland declares state of emergency due to ransomware attack

#86
post #85
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here, the company I work for did some back of the napkin calculations for restoration times for archival storage (tape) and determined that it’d take us 2 days to restore minimum and up to 7 days to restore if the queues were full. This was with Azure and a relatively small amount of data (around 6TB). We’re using their immutable storage option, with a 60 day window with multiple rotation intervals, and ju…

For regular backups of 6TB why would you even consider tape? Seriously asking because I have priced tapes and the break even point vs hard drives is high.

Because we’re not paying for the tapes, Microsoft is.

Their archival storage tier is extremely cheap, but has a high retrieval cost and a very slow retrieval time. If you wanted to keep 1+ year full and incremental backups of a large amount of data it’d be a no brained. If you’re only keeping 60 day full and incremental than the retrieval cost and time doesn’t pan out cost wise IMO.

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