Recovering from a Ransomware Attack on Pure Storage FlashArray

Ransomware attacks are daunting, but Pure Storage^® FlashArray^™ provides built-in tools that give you a reliable path to recovery. This blog outlines a high-level action plan to help you recover using FlashArray features, guiding you through immediate containment, forensic analysis, data restoration, and post-recovery validation. By leveraging FlashArray SafeMode™ Snapshots, snapshot management, and replication controls (like pausing replication), you can ensure data immutability and a trustworthy recovery. Throughout the process, remember you’re not alone: Working closely with your incident response (IR) team and Pure Support is crucial for a smooth recovery.

Immediate Actions after a Ransomware Attack

When a ransomware attack is discovered, acting quickly to contain damage and preserve recoverable data is paramount. FlashArray capabilities can help you do this effectively. Here are the immediate steps to take:

• Isolate affected systems: Disconnect or shut down compromised hosts and networks to prevent further spread. Stop any active I/O to the FlashArray volumes that were attacked. This containment protects both the FlashArray system and other infrastructure from additional encryption damage.
• Pause replication to DR sites: If your FlashArray system is replicating data to a secondary site or cloud, pause or break that replication immediately. This prevents encrypted or corrupted data from propagating to otherwise clean backup copies. By halting replication, you preserve the last-known good snapshots on the target before ransomware can affect them.
• Leverage SafeMode Snapshots: FlashArray SafeMode Snapshots are immutable recovery points—they cannot be deleted or altered by any user, even an admin or attacker. Verify that SafeMode is enabled (if it wasn’t already, engage Pure Support to enable it for future protection). Identify the most recent clean snapshot from before the ransomware executed. SafeMode ensures that such snapshots are still intact and provides a guaranteed recovery point after an attack. If SafeMode was not enabled and you still have snapshots, quickly take a manual snapshot of critical volumes (and then enable SafeMode going forward).
• Engage incident response and Pure Support: Notify your organization’s incident response team immediately. Follow your internal ransomware response playbook in coordination with them. Simultaneously, contact Pure Support and open a critical support case. Pure Support has experience with ransomware scenarios and can guide you on SafeMode snapshot recovery, validate steps, and even assist with any adjustments (for example, extending snapshot retention or enabling special recovery features). Involving Pure Support early also ensures that any SafeMode operations (like allowing deletions after recovery) are done with the proper authorization. Think of SafeMode as a “two-key” system—even with admin credentials, destructive changes require Pure Support concurrence with your authorized contacts. This collaboration adds an extra layer of security and confidence.

Taking these immediate actions will stabilize the situation. Your primary goal in this phase is to stop the bleeding: contain the threat, protect your safe copies (snapshots/replicas), and get expert teams on board.

Forensic Analysis and Recovery Planning

With the immediate threat contained, the next phase is to understand what happened and plan a clean recovery. Anomaly detection in Pure1^® aligns anomaly timing with your snapshot catalog and surfaces recommended snapshots closest to the onset of suspicious behavior (e.g., DRR collapse from encryption). This lets you recover to the point just before the attack starts, minimizing data loss. FlashArray snapshot and logging features are invaluable for forensic investigation:

• Preserve evidence: Do not immediately delete the encrypted volumes or snapshots created by the attacker. If volumes were “destroyed” by the attacker, they’ll still reside in the trash (eradication queue) of the FlashArray system. Thanks to SafeMode, those volumes and snapshots cannot be purged by the attacker and remain available. Preserve these in their current state for now—your IR team may need them for analysis (e.g., to determine the ransomware strain or to check if data was exfiltrated). FlashArray audit logs (accessible via Pure1 or the array) can also provide a timeline of admin actions, which might help pinpoint when and how the attacker struck.
• Identify the last clean snapshot: Work with your storage and security teams to find the most recent snapshot from before the encryption began. FlashArray snapshots are often scheduled at regular intervals; determine which snapshots correspond to a point in time just prior to the incident. Because FlashArray snapshots are immutable and thin-provisioned, you can safely use them for investigation without risking the data. For example, you can create a clone of a snapshot onto a new volume and present it to an isolated forensic server. This allows your incident responders to inspect the data (and even run malware scans) to verify that the snapshot is clean and ransomware-free, all without touching the original data or interrupting production. The space-efficient nature of snapshots means these clones consume minimal extra capacity, so you can spin up multiple copies if needed for analysis.
• Analyze and plan with your IR team: In coordination with your IR team, analyze how the ransomware infiltrated and which systems were impacted. Determine if there are backdoors or ongoing threats that need neutralizing before restoration. This may involve scanning the cloned snapshot data for malware signatures or indicators of compromise. It’s critical to ensure you’re about to restore from a truly clean snapshot. The IR team might also advise on when to restore—for instance, after certain security patches or updates are applied to servers—to avoid reinfection. Use this phase to decide the scope of recovery: which volumes or applications will be restored and in what order.

Throughout this forensic stage, remember that your data on FlashArray (in snapshots) is safe and unchangeable. Knowing you have immutable SafeMode Snapshots in reserve provides peace of mind while you and the experts map out the recovery game plan. It’s a good practice to document findings (which snapshots are clean, which volumes were affected, etc.) as you plan the next steps.

Restoring Data from SafeMode Snapshots

Once a clear recovery plan is in place and you’ve identified clean snapshot points, it’s time to restore your data and get critical systems back online. FlashArray all-flash architecture and snapshot technology make the restoration both fast and reliable:

The Evergreen//One^™ Cyber Recovery and Resilience SLA add‑on (also known as the ransomware recovery guarantee) provides a white‑glove recovery service for FlashArray customers by shipping clean arrays and assisting with snapshot-based restoration after a cyber incident or disaster. It is purchased as an add‑on to an Evergreen//One subscription and is designed to get you back online fast on a clean platform while preserving forensic integrity of the compromised infrastructure.

• Perform a controlled restoration: Select the appropriate SafeMode snapshot that represents the last good state of your data. You have a couple of options to restore: You can clone the snapshot to new volumes or restore (rollback) the original volumes from the snapshot. Cloning to new volumes is often safer initially—it allows you to bring up applications on fresh volumes with the clean data, while the original volumes (with encrypted data) remain untouched for now. This way, if something goes wrong, you still have the original and snapshot as is. In either case, the FlashArray system will simply repoint storage metadata back to the snapshot data blocks, making the recovery virtually instantaneous. There is no lengthy data copy needed, unlike traditional backups—your volumes can be reverted to their pre-attack state in seconds.
• Verify and bring systems online: After restoration, but before reconnecting end users or production workloads, perform a validation. Mount the restored volumes on a few application hosts in a controlled manner (ideally in a quarantined network or with systems that have been thoroughly cleaned). Verify that the data is intact and that the ransomware is no longer present. This may involve running integrity checks on databases, opening a sample of files to ensure they are not encrypted, and using updated antivirus/anti-malware scanners on the restored data. The goal is to confirm that you truly have a clean environment. Thanks to the forensic steps earlier, there should be high confidence at this stage.
• Leverage Pure Support during recovery: Pure Support provides white‑glove service (If you have subscribed to Evergreen//One Cyber Recovery and Resilience) to help you recover swiftly and safely from ransomware on FlashArray. While you typically do not need Pure Support help to execute a snapshot restore (it’s an admin operation you can do via GUI or CLI), keeping them in the loop, especially if SafeMode is enabled, would help you ensure a successful recovery. For example, if the SafeMode retention policy needs adjusting (perhaps you want to temporarily extend how long snapshots are kept during the crisis), Pure Support can make those changes with the proper authorization from your side. If any issues arise (e.g., questions about which snapshot to use or how to handle a large number of volumes), Pure Support will guide you. Remember, our goal is to ensure your data comes back online quickly and safely, and we have a vested interest in your successful recovery.

Thanks to the design of FlashArray, data restoration is extremely fast and efficient—it’s done at “flash speed.” This means downtime is minimized, and you can begin bringing applications back much sooner than if you were relying on a slow off-site backup. In many cases, businesses that use FlashArray SafeMode Snapshots can recover in hours instead of days or weeks, avoiding huge losses.

Post-recovery Validation and Resuming Operations

Recovery doesn’t end the moment data is restored. It’s essential to validate the environment and take steps to prevent future incidents as you resume normal operations:

• Thoroughly validate systems: With data restored from clean snapshots, conduct a full validation of all key applications and data sets. Have application owners and users perform checks to ensure everything is working correctly. Monitor system logs and behavior closely for any anomalies. This is essentially a post-recovery testing phase—confirming databases are consistent, files open correctly, and no lingering malware is detected. If any issues are found, you can fall back to the snapshots again (for example, if you discover a chosen snapshot wasn’t as clean as thought, you might pick an older one). However, such cases are rare if the forensic analysis was done diligently.
• Malware scanning and patching: As you bring systems online, make sure they have the latest security patches and that all antivirus definitions are up to date. Perform deep malware scans on all restored systems (servers, VMs, etc.) before fully releasing them to users. This step, done in coordination with your IR or security team, ensures that the live environment is free of ransomware or any other exploit. The last thing you want is a reinfection right after restoration.
• Resume replication and backups: If you paused replication earlier, resume it only after you’re confident the environment is clean. You may first resynchronize data from the primary FlashArray to the secondary, or even consider doing a fresh seeding if needed (in case the delta during the attack was large). The key is to avoid syncing corrupted data; once validated, re-enable your replication workflows so that your DR site is back in step. Similarly, re-enable any backup jobs that were halted, and consider taking a fresh full backup or snapshot of the newly restored “known-good” state as a new baseline.
• Work with Pure Support for cleanup: Following recovery, you might have some cleanup tasks on the FlashArray system. For instance, the encrypted volumes that you isolated or left in the trash can now be securely eradicated once you’re certain they’re no longer needed (and all data has been restored elsewhere). Because SafeMode was active, those volumes/snapshots will only be permanently deleted when the SafeMode timer expires or if you explicitly request it. Coordinate with Pure Support and use your authorized SafeMode contacts to erase the malicious remnants at the appropriate time. Pure Support can also assist in adjusting your snapshot schedules and retention back to normal (for example, if you extended retention during the crisis, you might dial it back to conserve space once things settle). Throughout this process, the Pure Support team remains a helpful partner—their insights from other ransomware cases can be invaluable in post-incident management.
• Review and strengthen defenses: Finally, take the opportunity to learn from the incident. Work with your IR team to analyze the attack vector and close any security gaps that were exploited (this may be more in the IT/security realm, but it’s worth noting). From the FlashArray perspective, ensure SafeMode remains enabled going forward (if it wasn’t before, it should be now—it’s offered at no cost and provides huge benefits). You should also review your snapshot policies: Are you taking snapshots frequently enough for your risk profile? Are they replicated off-site? FlashArray makes it simple to customize snapshot schedules and retention to meet your business needs. Having recent, immutable snapshots is what saved you this time; doubling down on that strategy will make you even more resilient in the future. Traditional backup might not always hold up against modern ransomware, but Pure Storage immutable snapshots secure critical data from being altered or destroyed, guaranteeing a place to recover to.
• Validate with users and incrementally restore services: As a best practice, bring systems back to users in phases. For example, restore critical databases and verify them, then allow application servers to reconnect, and finally let end users access the services. This phased approach ensures that if any issue arises, it’s easier to pinpoint and address without rolling back everything. Communicate with your stakeholders about which services are back and any residual effects. Many Pure Storage customers note that after such rapid snapshot-based recoveries, they can meet or beat their recovery time objectives, showcasing the value of the FlashArray approach.

Throughout the post-recovery phase, maintain close contact with Pure Support. They can run health checks on the FlashArray system to confirm it’s performing well after the restore and that no hardware issues coincided with the event. Proactive guidance from Pure Support can also help validate that your data protection features (like SafeMode, replication, encryption at rest, etc.) are all in optimal configuration moving forward.

Conclusion

Recovering from a ransomware attack is a stressful event for any organization. However, with Pure Storage FlashArray, you have powerful built-in protections that put you in control of your data’s fate. By swiftly isolating the threat, utilizing SafeMode immutable snapshots, and carefully planning the restore with help from Pure Support and your incident responders, you can rapidly return to normal operations without paying ransoms or suffering prolonged downtime. FlashArray immutable snapshot technology ensures that even if attackers compromise admin credentials, they can’t eradicate, modify, or encrypt your protected snapshots—your recovery points remain safe. And because recovery is done at flash speed, you minimize disruption and prove the robustness of your business continuity plan.

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