Case Study: Laguna Woods Village achieves rapid ransomware recovery and modernized security with Fortinet

FortiGuard Incident Response Helps Large Planned Community Recover from Ransomware

Village Management Services (VMS) runs Laguna Woods Village, a large planned retirement community of about 18,000 residents that also maintains one of Southern California’s largest private fiber networks. In October 2020 a sophisticated ransomware attack—initially introduced via a phishing email and executed after weeks of reconnaissance—shut down on‑site systems and forced VMS to engage FortiGuard Incident Response and partner AirGap Labs to contain and recover.

FortiGuard IR and AirGap Labs used FortiEDR, FortiGate NGFWs and other Fortinet tools to identify attacker locations, contain the breach within 24 hours, and support a full rebuild and cloud migration. By standardizing on the Fortinet Security Fabric with 24/7 monitoring, network segmentation, and centralized analytics, VMS restored critical services faster, thwarted subsequent attack attempts, simplified security management and training, and achieved a stronger, lower‑cost security posture.

Laguna Woods Village

Chuck Holland

Chief Information Officer, Village Management Services (VMS)