Restore data after a ransomware attack

10/31/2024 Contributors

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Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP) creates snapshots named Anti_ransomware_backup when it detects a potential ransomware threat. You can use one of these ARP snapshots or another snapshot of your volume to restore data.

About this task

If the volume has SnapMirror relationships, manually replicate all mirror copies of the volume immediately after you restore from a snapshot. Not doing so can result in unusable mirror copies that must be deleted and recreated.

To restore from a snapshot other than the Anti_ransomware_backup snapshot after a system attack was identified, you must first release the ARP snapshot.

If no system attack was reported, you must first restore from the Anti_ransomware_backup snapshot then complete a subsequent restoration of the volume from the snapshot of your choosing.

Steps

You can use System Manager or the ONTAP CLI to restore your data.

System Manager

Restore after a system attack

To restore from the ARP snapshot, skip to step two. To restore from an earlier snapshot, you must first release the lock on the ARP snapshot.
1. Select Storage > Volumes.
2. Select Security then View Suspected File Types.
3. Mark the files as "Potential ransomware attack".
4. Select Update and Clear Suspect File Types.
Display the snapshots in volumes:

Select Storage > Volumes, then select the volume and Snapshot Copies.
Select next to the snapshot you want to restore then Restore.

Restore if a system attack was not identified

Display the snapshots in volumes:

Select Storage > Volumes, then select the volume and Snapshot Copies.
Select them choose the Anti_ransomware_backup snapshot.
Select Restore.
Return to the Snapshot Copies menu, then choose the snapshot you want to use. Select Restore.

CLI

Restore after a system attack

To restore from the ARP snapshot, skip to step two. To restore data from earlier snapshots, you must release the lock on the ARP snapshot.

It is only necessary to release the anti-ransomware Snaplock before restoring from earlier snapshots if you are using the volume snap restore command as outlined below. If you are restoring data using FlexClone, Single File Snap Restore, or other methods, this is not necessary.

Mark the attack as a potential ransomware attack (-false-positive false) and clear suspect files (clear-suspect):
anti-ransomware volume attack clear-suspect -vserver svm_name -volume vol_name [extension identifiers] -false-positive false
Use one of the following parameters to identify the extensions:
[-seq-no integer] Sequence number of the file in the suspect list.
[-extension text, … ] File extensions
[-start-time date_time -end-time date_time] Starting and ending times for the range of files to be cleared, in the form "MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS".

List the Snapshot copies in a volume:

volume snapshot show -vserver <SVM> -volume <volume>

The following example shows the Snapshot copies in vol1:

clus1::> volume snapshot show -vserver vs1 -volume vol1

Vserver Volume Snapshot                State    Size  Total% Used%
------- ------ ---------- ----------- ------   -----  ------ -----
vs1	    vol1   hourly.2013-01-25_0005  valid   224KB     0%    0%
               daily.2013-01-25_0010   valid   92KB      0%    0%
               hourly.2013-01-25_0105  valid   228KB     0%    0%
               hourly.2013-01-25_0205  valid   236KB     0%    0%
               hourly.2013-01-25_0305  valid   244KB     0%    0%
               hourly.2013-01-25_0405  valid   244KB     0%    0%
               hourly.2013-01-25_0505  valid   244KB     0%    0%

7 entries were displayed.

Restore the contents of a volume from a Snapshot copy:

volume snapshot restore -vserver <SVM> -volume <volume> -snapshot <snapshot>

The following example restores the contents of vol1:

cluster1::> volume snapshot restore -vserver vs0 -volume vol1 -snapshot daily.2013-01-25_0010