From Inc 500 to Hack to Shut Down

I recently was forced to shut down IdeaBuyer.com, a company I had started 13 years ago, due to a catastrophic hack.

It brought a company that has been in business for 13 years, twice recognized on the Inc 500, to its knees.

It was a sudden event that left a wake of upset clients and employees. It was also one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

There’s no way to describe to anyone who hasn’t experienced such an event, the feeling of pure helplessness.

Idea Buyer was hacked. Our servers, hosting a variety of data and information, belonging to the company and clients, experienced a malicious and devastating attack.

It was only after learning of issues caused, that I realized what had happened.

With the amount of information hosted on the company’s servers, our team started by trying to understand the impact.

The company hired two separate companies that specialize in locating and recovering data from servers.

Initially, both seemed to think that the information could be recovered from older instances or backups.

All server access to data in and out, was shut off, which shut down the operation of a number of mobile apps and websites being hosted there.

While initially very promising, the specialist was only able to recover about 20% of what was on the servers. Some of which needed to be corrected in order to properly function. We began to notify clients that were most effected by the attack. As you can imagine, no one was happy. Some were distraught. Some were angry. Some were devastated. I felt the same. Everyone on those calls felt the same.

After talking with specialists, police, insurance and legal representatives, Idea Buyer was left no option but to shut down.

It brought a company that has been in business for 13 years, twice recognized on the Inc 500, to its knees.

The words to tell a room of people that they were being let go, definitely didn’t come easy. These people put their hearts into their work and into helping entrepreneurs. I am proud to have worked with each of them and truly couldn’t have asked for a better team.

I spent that evening and much of the several days following, staring out the window, hoping that this wasn’t actually happening. I couldn’t look at my phone or emails. People that I had worked with, who relied on my company, wanted answers. Answers that I still don’t have.

I am sorry. I didn’t see it coming. I was naive to believe that this type of evil couldn’t happen.

The company hired a remote team to gather what was recoverable and get it to clients.

The impact of this attack is greater than we even know. Many lives and companies have been effected by this malice.

A case was filed with the proper authorities, in an effort to bring the party(ies) to justice. Thank you to those of you that have assisted in this investigation by providing details that may help.

Additionally, thank you to everyone who has reached out offering to help our team and clients transition to new homes.

For all of the founders out there, I highly recommend having a 3rd party cyber security team come in and analyze your vulnerabilities. Business owners have enough challenges as it is — do everything you can to prevent a wildcard like this from forcing you out of business.

In light of this experience, I have been diligently studying cyber security. It’s frequency and severity is increasing at an alarming rate.

Recent Hacks:

I believe it is one of the top risks for businesses in the next decade. Learn from our disaster, and schedule an appointment with a cyber security professional.

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