{"id":497340,"date":"2022-03-07T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devoteam.com\/success-story\/ransomware-attack-nordic-choice-hotels\/"},"modified":"2022-03-07T11:05:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T11:05:00","slug":"ransomware-attack-nordic-choice-hotels","status":"publish","type":"success-story","link":"https:\/\/devoteam.info\/be\/success-story\/ransomware-attack-nordic-choice-hotels\/","title":{"rendered":"After a ransomware attack, Nordic Choice Hotels converted 3000 Windows computers to CloudReady in less than 1 week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This post is written by Stig Andreassen, PROJECT Manager at G Cloud NORWAY<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The snapshot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nordic Choice Hotels needed to recover from a crippling ransomware attack that brought hotel operations to a standstill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal was to rapidly restore essential IT systems across 210+ hotels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devoteam successfully converted 3000 Windows computers to Chrome OS Flex in under a week, enabling a swift return to normal operations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

About the customer <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nordic Choice Hotels<\/a> is a hotel chain with more than 210 hotels across the Nordics and the Baltics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Challenge\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since summer 2021, Devoteam G Cloud, Google and Nordic Choice Hotels had been working together on a project to upgrade a number of endpoint devices. Together all partners agreed on deploying Chrome OS Flex, featured on TechRadar by Devoteam,<\/a> (formerly CloudReady<\/a>) to replace a great number of ageing Windows devices at virtually every hotel in the chain throughout every location. Devoteam G Cloud<\/a> and Nordic Choice Hotels started the first phase of the pilot late November at a few hotels in Oslo. Just as everyone was looking forward to completing the pilot phase, winding down for the holidays and doing a lessons learnt something happened: Nordic Choice Hotels was hit by a ransomware attack. On December 2nd, the hotel chain was hit by a ransomware attack<\/strong>, crippling operations and posing a large security risk for any vulnerable device on the network. Hotel operations went back to the stone age and essentially became fully manual, causing long delays.\u00a0 Returning to normal operations looked unlikely in the short term, and very labour intensive in the long term, the situation presented few good options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within hours of being informed of the incident our project was identified as virtually the only way to return hotels to normal operations quickly. Everyone involved dropped what they were doing and went all-in to implement the project as quickly as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution: Wipe and convert every infected device from a windows device to Chrome OS<\/strong>. The Chrome OS Flex devices (formerly CloudReady<\/a>) were not affected by the ransomware, any Windows device on the network would be reinfected and useless in moments. Additionally, the customer has a number of Chromebooks<\/a> in the organisation from before and we had gained experience with the Chrome os Flex devices (formerly CloudReady) from the pilot phase. We hit the big red button and dived in the deep end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019d like to highlight that the personnel actually doing the majority of the work were non-technical personnel. The installation was largely done by the local receptionists, general managers or any available administration staff that happened to be at work these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stig Andreassen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project Manager at G Cloud Norway<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Something we\u2019d like to highlight especially before we get into more of the solution is that the personnel actually doing the majority of the work are non-technical personnel<\/strong>. The installation was largely done by the local receptionists, general managers or any available administration staff that happened to be at work these days. This was possible due to the simplicity and reliability of Google Flex, a clear communication package and knowledgeable support staff. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project initially timed to be a ~4 months gradual deployment went into overdrive. To achieve the fastest implementation phase we have ever faced, multiple assets were crucial. Two of these were a crystal clear communication package and creating the actual USB boot sticks that would be used to install CloudReady. <\/p>\n\n\n\n