Case Study: Atlas Research achieves rapid ransomware recovery and avoids $1M in downtime with Barracuda Networks

How Atlas Research recovered from Cryptolocker with Barracuda Backup

Atlas Research is a 75‑person, award‑winning consulting firm in Washington, D.C., serving federal health and social service agencies. After a senior executive opened a CryptoLocker‑style phishing message the company suffered two ransomware incidents that exposed minimal, unreliable backups (limited to Dropbox and SharePoint), left data partially compromised, and in the first attack produced three weeks of disruption and an estimated $1M+ in lost productivity.

Atlas deployed an on‑premises Barracuda Backup 490 with incremental cloud backups and outside help to configure the system. When a second infection struck, IT severed affected connections and used Barracuda to restore files in about half a day—reducing total downtime to roughly four hours, avoiding paying a ransom, and preventing more than $1M in additional lost productivity.

Atlas Research

Nels Benson

IT Director