A large Swiss corporation operating in the logistics sector experienced the worst-case scenario its IT team could imagine. By exploiting an unpatched vulnerability, attackers penetrated the network and deployed Akira ransomware, renaming all critical files with the .akira extension and rendering the VMware environment, responsible for central routing and cargo management operations, inaccessible. Within minutes, two Synology NAS devices that stored daily snapshots and backups were also compromised, eliminating the traditional recovery path. Without a formal incident response plan and with all operations paralyzed, the IT team felt the heavy burden of responsibility, while the emotionally shaken management sought a solution that didn’t involve negotiating with criminals.
It was at this point that Digital Recovery was called in. Right from the initial contact, our engineers established direct telephone communication with the CIO and opened a secure email channel for exchanging sensitive information. The initial diagnosis confirmed the extent of the damage: all VMware volumes encrypted and NAS partitions locked. The urgency was clear—each hour of downtime resulted in logistical delays across various European hubs. With no possibility of utilizing compromised backups, we quickly defined a recovery plan.
The strategy began with the physical isolation of the NAS devices to prevent any overwriting, and the creation of sector-based forensic images in UFS format, ensuring block integrity. In our laboratory, we used proprietary technologies capable of directly mounting Btrfs volumes from these images, reconstructing metadata, and regrouping the VMDK files essential for the virtual environment. Throughout the entire process, we kept the client informed through daily reports and follow-up calls, providing transparency and alleviating the management team’s anxiety.
On the third day of work, our team discovered an undocumented backup repository in a secondary data center, miraculously intact. This discovery allowed us to accelerate the restoration of some virtual machines: only one VM needed to remain offline to ensure the consistency of the recovered environment. On the fifth day after the request was opened, we delivered all validated data, providing verification hashes to the client for independent auditing. Logistics operations resumed without the need to pay any ransom, and the internal team reported immediate relief upon seeing terminals displaying normalized dispatch queues again.
This experience reinforced two fundamental lessons: maintaining segmented backups—including offline copies—and establishing an incident response plan that is regularly tested. For Digital Recovery, this case once again demonstrated that even when facing sophisticated ransomware like Akira, the combination of advanced forensic techniques, clear client communication, and an absolute focus on recovering ransomware-affected data can restore critical operations in record time.
