David’s Story, Chapter 3: The Breach
The first sign was small, almost invisible.
A support ticket popped up on a Tuesday morning: an engineer couldn’t access the design repository. At first, it looked like a routine glitch—maybe a permissions error, maybe a sync delay. The IT team logged it, assigned a technician, and moved on.
But by noon, the issue wasn’t isolated. Three more engineers had reported inaccessible files. By the afternoon, Finance noticed delayed system responses.
Then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, everything stopped. Product design files, HR records, vendor invoices. All frozen.
Ransomware!
David sat in his office, the glow of his monitor illuminating a message none of them ever wanted to see: “Your files are encrypted. Pay in cryptocurrency to regain access.”
He leaned back, pulse rising. His company, the one he and his team had poured years of work into, the one that had just broken into the government market, was locked down.
He and his team had known for some time that they needed to raise their game in IT and especially for cybersecurity and compliance. They knew they need a different kind of IT partner. One that could provide managed IT services and managed security services: MSP plus MSSP in one. “That can’t come soon enough”, he said audibly to himself. But for now, he didn’t have just an emergency to manage, he had a crisis.
IT was already on a bridge call with his leadership team. Their lead explained calmly but urgently: “We’re containing it. The good news is, we caught it relatively quickly. The attackers didn’t get to backups, and we see no evidence of exfiltration so far. But restoring systems will take time. Expect days, hopefully not weeks.”
David’s CFO spoke next, voice tight. “Weeks? We’re in the middle of contract deliverables. Do we need to pay the ransom?”
“No,” the IT lead replied firmly. “We have clean backups. Paying is a gamble, and we don’t need to. But there will be downtime, and it won’t be cheap. Recovery means rebuilding, not just flipping a switch.”
Silence.
David broke it. “Alright. Contain, restore, communicate. Let’s move.”
The next 8 days were chaos.
Engineering had to pause on active development while repositories were scrubbed and restored. Finance worked in manual mode, processing payroll through spreadsheets and paper checks. The sales team couldn’t access their CRM for three days, missing follow-ups with key prospects.
Every department felt it.
Everyone worked around the clock, rotating teams in shifts. David made sure food arrived for the teams, who were camped in conference rooms with laptops that had to be scanned before reconnecting.
By day four, the core systems were back. By day six, operations were close to normal. The company had survived. But the recovery had cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars in lost productivity, emergency security services, and reputational damage control.
On the Friday after systems came back online, David gathered his leadership team again in the conference room. He looked around at tired but determined faces.
“We’re lucky,” David began. “We didn’t lose data. We didn’t lose customers. We didn’t lose the government contract. But make no mistake, this was a warning. We need to treat it that way.”
He clicked the remote, and the screen lit up with three words: Preparation, Integration, Communication.
“These,” David said, “are our lessons to prevent this from happening again.”
Lesson One: Preparation.
“Our backups saved us. If attackers had reached them, we’d be in a very different place. But backups alone aren’t enough. We need cybersecurity training. We need cybersecurity drills, tabletop exercises, and recovery rehearsals. And we need IT to build a process to make sure that it happens regularly. Everyone must know what to do — before it happens. We prepare for fire drills. This is no different.”
Heads nodded. The compliance officer scribbled notes.
Lesson Two: Integration.
“This breach showed us where the seams are. IT had logs, Finance had invoices, Engineering had repositories. But too often, they weren’t speaking the same language. The truth is, cybersecurity must be integrated explicitly with all other IT responsibilities. There are MSPs that do that and we should look at that option. Our MSP must also be an MSSP. And cybersecurity needs to get integrated into every workflow and all data. Our security posture has to be fully integrated with how we operate as a company.”
Engineering’s VP raised a hand. “We saw that firsthand. The repository wasn’t just a technical tool; it was our lifeblood. We need to design processes assuming they’re vulnerable.”
David nodded. “Exactly.”
Lesson Three: Communication.
“In the middle of the breach, the hardest thing was uncertainty. Were customers affected? Were contracts compromised? Were paychecks safe? First, we must take steps to prevent this from happening again and that by itself demands a lot of proactive communication and training. But if we ever are under visible threat or experience an actual breach again, we need clear, consistent communication, internally and externally. We did okay, but we can do better. Trust is built not when things go right, but when we’re honest about setbacks.”
The room was quiet. Everyone knew he was right.
David leaned forward, voice steady.
“This hack didn’t break us. But it exposed cracks. And fixing them isn’t optional if we want to keep growing, if we want to keep winning contracts, if we want to stay trusted by customers and employees alike.”
He paused, then smiled faintly.
“I don’t want us to live in fear of the next breach. I want us to take all the steps necessary, including new partners as we grow, to build confidence that no matter what comes, we can recover faster, smarter, stronger. Preparation. Integration. Communication. That’s our playbook.”
For the first time in two weeks, David felt the weight lift a little. The hack had hurt, but it had also clarified.
The company had faced fire, and it was still standing. Now, it was time to rebuild not just systems, but resilience.
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