A true story from an IT manager at a mid-sized engineering services firm
At 10:03 AM, the alert came in: “File encryption detected. Extension changed to .locked.”
My heart dropped. We’d been hit.
We’re a 200-person engineering services company. We use a mix of commercial software—finance, contracts, project tracking—and a custom-built data archive platform for long-term project records.
We don’t have a dedicated security team. We can’t afford a $50K disaster recovery system. But we do have one rule: critical data must be backed up to an air-gapped, isolated device—every day, without fail.
Three months ago, I deployed a lightweight tool called SquirrelBackup. Not as a primary DR solution, but as a last line of defense.
It runs silently on an old PC in a locked cabinet—physically disconnected from the main network. Every night, it pulls a clean copy of our databases and key file stores. It filters known ransomware patterns and logs every transfer.
No cloud fees. No complex setup. Just automation with isolation.
When the attack hit, our main server was encrypted. Access was blocked. But the backup machine? Untouched.
We rebuilt the system in 8 hours. No data loss. No compliance breach. But the incident exposed gaps:
These will be addressed—with proper budget and planning.
But one thing won’t change: we’ll keep using SquirrelBackup.
It’s not flashy. It doesn’t promise instant failover. But it does one thing exceptionally well: it keeps a clean, air-gapped copy of our data—ready when everything else fails.
In cybersecurity, perfection is impossible. But preparedness? That’s a choice.
SquirrelBackup helps teams like yours maintain a silent, secure backup—without complexity or cost.
SquirrelBackup isn’t about replacing enterprise DR. It’s about giving every team—no matter the size—a fighting chance when ransomware strikes.
Because real security isn’t just about prevention. It’s about having a clean copy—somewhere safe—when prevention fails.