When the first signs of instability appeared on the school’s file server early on a Friday morning, the IT department initially suspected a trivial VMware infrastructure issue. Minutes later, however, virtual machines started showing strange extensions in file names; within hours, the entire campus had lost access to exams, academic records, enrollment systems, and even teacher attendance controls. It was the Interlock ransomware, which had completely encrypted the ESXi-hosted file server—and, to make matters worse, also the backups stored on the same disk pool.
Without an incident response plan, the administrators worked tirelessly, trying to identify the attack vector and salvage at least one intact snapshot. Amidst this race against time, the school administration contacted Digital Recovery. Their request was straightforward: recover essential content from the virtual machines. To facilitate the project, we established a 24/7 communication channel—including weekend shifts and late-night meetings—to align every step closely with the IT coordinator and the school dean.
During the initial remote analyses, we discovered that Interlock had deleted logs and overwritten backup structures, rendering traditional restoration attempts ineffective. Consequently, we redirected our efforts toward block-level scanning techniques, extracting valid fragments directly from the ESXi data stores. The client’s confidence wavered when other companies promised miraculous solutions; however, we maintained composure, presented detailed technical comparisons, and demonstrated how our rebuilding algorithms preserved filesystem metadata that initially appeared lost. This transparency proved decisive in strengthening our partnership.
Over the course of three weeks, our team regrouped VMDK volumes, reconstructing folders for each class, educational materials, and academic records—critical data without which the semester would have been compromised. Each step was validated using integrity hashes shared in real-time with the school’s chief administrator. Although the process is still in its final consolidation phase, critical files have already been returned, enabling classes to continue on their normal schedule and ensuring students didn’t miss university application deadlines.
This case highlights the vulnerability of virtualized environments that store production data and backups on the same disk pool. However, it also demonstrates how dedicated support and tailored VMware-specific solutions can turn around situations previously considered unrecoverable. Today, the school is revising its offline backup policies and, with our consulting support, developing a comprehensive incident response plan—determined never again to endure sleepless nights due to ransomware.
In all cases of ransomware attacks, we can help; talk to our specialists.
