Vent: My home server got hit with a ransomware attack last Tuesday

I was running an old version of TrueNAS without updating for about 8 months, thinking my local network was safe. They encrypted over 2TB of family photos and asked for 0.5 Bitcoin. I wiped the drives and restored from a 6-month-old backup I had in a closet, losing a lot of recent stuff. What's the longest you've gone between checking your offline backups?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant.nina1mo ago

After my own scare last year, I set a calendar reminder to check my cold storage every three months. I keep two external drives in a fireproof safe, and I physically unplug them after the backup. The routine check takes maybe twenty minutes, but it forces me to actually look at the files and verify they open. Losing six months of data is brutal, I feel for you. That three month rule is the longest I'll ever go now.

andrew_palmer991mo ago

Three months seems way too long to me. I had a drive fail after sitting for just eight weeks last summer. Now I do a quick check every month, and I run a full backup to both drives every other month. It only takes ten minutes to plug them in and spot check a few folders. Waiting three months feels like asking for trouble.

parker_park81mo ago

Ever think about what happens if your backup drive is fine but the files themselves get corrupted? I had a batch of photos go bad on a drive that tested perfect. Now my monthly check includes opening a few random files from different folders, not just seeing if the drive spins up. A full backup every other month won't save you if the data rots quietly.