<24 hours
critical systems back online
100%
recovery within 1 week and zero data lost
Azure
and Microsoft 365 data resilient against cyber threats
Overview
Dan Gallivan, Director of IT, dropped what he was doing early one Saturday morning when he received an urgent call alerting systems going down. “My first thought was a simple power outage. It was not uncommon to have power fluctuations with heating and cooling.” He continued, “But once I got to the office and started to bring the system back up, I realized this wasn’t just a standard power outage. We were under attack.”
Payette is an award-winning architecture firm with the mission to create buildings of purpose: life learning, discovery, and healing. Payette’s architects have shaped cutting-edge 5.5M square foot science centers to world-changing hospitals across the globe.
As Gallivan realized the PC LAN and network services had been exploited, he immediately called in his security team. “Thankfully, I had already segmented data to protect different resources. The fear of a cyber breach has always been in the back of my mind. We were fortunate that all our data was protected and mirrored. Throughout the course of the cyber attack, we were confident we would not have to pay the ransom with Rubrik in our corner,” he said.
Rubrik’s software intelligence is a winning combination. Not only do we have one comprehensive data security solution that checks all the boxes, it is also the most innovative I have seen. Rubrik has a deep understanding of their customers and what they are trying to accomplish that is unrivaled. I can truly sleep better at night knowing we have Rubrik.
Dan Gallivan
Director of IT![]()
Challenges
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Admin account compromised, hacker waited until after hours to initiate attack
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50TB of Dell EMC Isilon data suspected to be encrypted and corrupted
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Windows servers and network data shares compromised
Results
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Critical systems online in less than 24 hours
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Cyber attack thwarted before hacker could demand ransom
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100% recovery within 1 week and zero data lost
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Microsoft 365 and Azure data resilient against cyber threats
Challenges
DATA SECURITY IS WHERE RUBRIK IS A MAINSTAY
Payette’s largest data sets are unstructured NAS data. The firm hosts CAD and building models, PDF images, and videos, with the average project spanning 3½ – 5 years. “If there is a change in direction or a shift in project teams, being able to revert back to versions from years ago is critical to our efficiency and success,” Gallivan remarked.
“We also have our finance, HR, payroll, and all fiscal transactions running on NAS. You can imagine just how important our data is to us and we trust Rubrik to secure 40+ TBs of data. The attacker did manage to bring down one of the servers but we restored it on Rubrik, put it right back online, and were able to move on,” Gallivan said.
Thanks to Rubrik Security Cloud, critical systems were back online in less than 24 hours, meaning zero business impact. Due to Payette’s quick recovery efforts, the hacker never even had the opportunity to deliver a ransom note. Gallivan chuckled, “Appreciate your efforts in trying, but you did not get anything of value.”
Solutions
HOW DO YOU QUANTIFY PEACE OF MIND? IT IS PRICELESS
This breach could have been much worse. Without Rubrik, Payette would have had to resort to a full wipe-and-replace; multi-million dollar projects, designs 3½ years in the making, payroll, financial data, gone. More importantly, had the breach gone south, the biggest casualty would have been the reputational damage.
Our clients want to know they are partnering with a trustworthy and secure firm. Rubrik is our insurance policy for our data. How do you quantify that peace of mind? It is priceless.
Dan Gallivan
Director of IT![]()
After the breach, Payette added Ransomware Investigation to its tool belt, grew the capacity of their cluster, and expanded their footprint to Azure. “Now, Ransomware Investigation is constantly detecting anomalies, looking for false positives. It is vital having that dashboard of real-time information readily available in one place,” Gallivan said. “In fact, that is the reason I landed on Rubrik as our data security partner of choice in the first place. Rubrik has a deep understanding of their customers and what they are trying to accomplish that is unrivaled. I can truly sleep better at night knowing we have Rubrik,” Gallivan stated.
The Results
CYBER-PROOFING MICROSOFT 365 AND AZURE DATA
It is simpler than ever to secure your Azure data with Rubrik. Payette noticed this firsthand when adopting Rubrik Cloud Data Protection. “We used CloudOn to migrate VMs to Azure and CloudOut to deploy and build our Azure infrastructure. It's Incredible being able to move these workloads into Azure and then have Rubrik protect them.”
Additionally, Payette experienced a natural evolution from Exchange on-prem to Exchange-hosted to moving their data to a complete Microsoft 365-hosted environment, making Microsoft 365 a cornerstone for the firm. “We are proud to be cloud-first in our offerings as we work globally with clients and consultants. Microsoft Teams is the go-to application for collaboration and communication. It goes without saying that Microsoft 365 is business critical.” Gallivan added, “Since Microsoft security tools provide no guaranteed recovery SLA and can potentially be used against us in an attack, the fact that Rubrik seamlessly integrates with Microsoft to protect Microsoft 365 data, arming it with immutability and resiliency against cyber threats is a game changer.”
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