Law firm's backups pass the audit, but the administrator accounts around them turn out to be the weak link
A regional law firm. Outcome verified
The problem
A regional law firm's IT leadership believed its backups were solid. Files had been restored before and copies replicated to the cloud. But nobody had independently checked the whole chain, from who could log into the backup consoles to whether a full recovery from nothing would work. Administrators also found the password vault too cumbersome to use.
Why it mattered
For a law firm, isolated and recoverable backups are the last defense against ransomware. Discovering a failure mid-incident means lost client files and unrecoverable billable work.
What we did
Vizius audited the backups as a seven-link chain: authentication, encryption, documentation, recovery, isolation, validation and inventory. It worked hands-on with the IT team, recorded proof of each link in a checklist rather than relying on interviews, and examined the identity layer around the backups, not just the backup jobs.
What changed
The audit confirmed a sound backup design with no material failures and surfaced six gaps, led by administrator accounts exposed to MFA-fatigue attacks, no alerting on new admin accounts, no formal restore-validation process, and an untested from-scratch recovery with unknown recovery time.
- Legal and professional services
- Midsize company