Case Study: Town of Colonie avoids $400,000 ransom and restores operations with Carbonite Server (Carbonite)

Town of Colonie - Customer Case study

The Town of Colonie, a municipal government serving more than 85,000 residents with 600+ employees and a 25‑server environment across multiple sites, was hit by a ransomware attack on January 15, 2020 after a phishing campaign. Attackers encrypted multiple servers and demanded more than $400,000 to restore access.

Because the town had deployed Carbonite Server appliances offsite and configured them per Carbonite’s recommendations, the backups were unaffected. IT disconnected the appliances, worked with Carbonite support and law enforcement, and restored systems over several weeks with only one data file lost—averting the ransom payment and limiting damage to staff overtime; the town is now adding bare‑metal recovery and improved endpoint antivirus.

Town of Colonie

Lisa Travis

Director of IT