What Happened
Friday, 6:30 PM. Operations manager came in on a Friday evening to finish documentation for the weekend shipments.
Screen locked. Ransom note. HODINI encrypted 280 gigabytes of documentation — shipping manifests, customs declarations, port entry forms, client booking records.
No backups. The backup system had failed three weeks earlier. The IT vendor had quoted a repair. It hadn't been done yet.
The Window
Saturday morning, 8 AM. They called us.
We had until Sunday evening to get those systems functional enough to complete port documentation.
48 hours.
Most ransomware cases, we work on a timeline of days to weeks. This one was hours.
What We Did
Hour 1-4: Remote assessment. Identified HODINI variant. HODINI uses AES+RSA hybrid encryption — without the private key, direct decryption is not viable. However, our forensic team identified a critical advantage: HODINI encrypts in staged waves, prioritizing document directories first. The malware had been interrupted mid-process when the machine was disconnected — roughly 9% of files were only partially encrypted, leaving recoverable data in the staging gaps.
Hour 5-12: Created a forensic image of the primary file server. Ran our extraction tools on the most critical directories first — the port entry documentation for the outbound shipment.
Hour 13-24: Successfully extracted the complete manifest and customs documentation for the Sunday sailing. The port forms were intact. The client booking records were partially corrupted — recovered enough to complete the port clearance.
Hour 25-36: Brought the core operating system back to functional state. Not a full restoration — a targeted rebuild around the critical operations.
Hour 37-48: Staff completed documentation manually, cross-referencing with recovered digital records. Port clearance submitted 4 hours before the vessel deadline.
The Numbers
| Vessel sailed | Yes — Sunday 11:30 PM |
| Shipment delivered | On time |
| Documents recovered | 91% |
| Recovery cost | ~USD 24,000 |
| Potential exposure avoided | ~USD 300,000 |
What Made This Possible
They called fast. Within 14 hours of discovery. Most companies take 24-48 hours to make the call — usually after trying to handle it internally first.
The staged encryption left gaps. As noted during assessment, HODINI's wave-based encryption process left 9% of files partially encrypted. This is where our data carving tools could operate — in the staging gaps between completed and pending encryption. This is not a weakness in the encryption algorithm. It's a byproduct of how staged ransomware processes files, and it's recoverable only if you know where to look.
They had a realistic timeline. The 48-hour window was real, but we told them honestly: this is possible, but it requires decisions fast and access to your team. They made the decisions.
What They Fixed After
Backup system replaced immediately. Not just repaired — replaced with an automated system that creates an immutable copy daily. Even if the network is compromised, the backups cannot be overwritten.
VPN patched. The entry point was an unpatched VPN, found and exploited by automated scanning within hours of being exposed.
Recovery time objective defined. They now know: if this happens again, what's the minimum functional system we need to get a vessel out? They can answer that question now, which means we can plan for it.
The Lesson Most Freight Companies Learn Too Late
Freight forwarders are busy. The nature of the business is managing complexity under time pressure — which means security updates get deferred, backups get checked "when there's time," and remote access gets set up "just for this one trip."
Attackers know this. The automated scanning that found this firm's VPN vulnerability runs 24 hours a day, across the entire internet. It found an unpatched device that had been exposed for 6 weeks.
The patch existed. The fix took 20 minutes.
For more on how HODINI targets logistics companies and why staged encryption creates recovery opportunities, see our HODINI ransomware recovery guide.
If you're in freight and you think you have a window:
Tell us what's sailing and when. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help in the time you have — free assessment, no commitment.
- WhatsApp: +852 4666 4940
- Email: IR@ransomrestore.com
- Website: ransomrestore.com
In most emergency cases, we respond within 3 hours.