IT Hard: A Reimagined Christmas Story

During this time of year, many people like to sit back and reminisce upon favorite stories from the past. We figured we’d join in the fun by reimagining what many argue to be a holiday classic: Die Hard.

Let’s take a few moments to consider how the story might play out if the action were to take place today…

John stepped out of the party, pulling out the pack of nicotine gum his doctor had recommended. Popping in a piece, he started chewing and loosened his tie for a moment. Things were going much better with Holly, better than he had dared imagine they would. The party was fun, and the night had gone off without a hitch so far. John smiled. Things seemed to be looking up.

Holly stepped out into the styled hallway of Nakatomi Plaza next to him, glasses in hand.

“Having fun?” She smiled at him, handing him a fresh drink.

“Yeah, I actually am. Takagi seems really nice. I just had to get away from that Ellis guy for a second. He’s got some nerve, doesn’t he?”

“He does. I’m glad his days here are numbered… the cleaning crews found another stash of his.”

“Hmm… he must have missed some.” John joked.  

Holly’s eyes lit up. “Want to hear something really crazy? I was just talking to our head of IT… apparently, there was a big cyberattack today!”

“Oh yeah?” John was intrigued.

“Yeah.” Holly sipped her cocktail. “Apparently, some hacking group calling themselves the Theo Collective tried shutting down Nakatomi Corp this morning. They sent an email to one of the sales reps that looked like it came from a prospective client. It had an attachment that wound up locking the team out of an important drive. They got a message and everything, saying that if they didn’t pay up, all of the files would be deleted.”

John nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that from one of the guys in cyber. Something called ransomware, right?”

“That was it. Anyways, it was bad news, because the data also had the credentials to get into the company’s finances. Between you and me, that meant they had access to well over a billion dollars.”

“Over a billion?” John couldn’t help but react to that number.

“Yeah! This virus, HANS.grub3r, had completely shut us down this morning. Full red alert.”

“So, what did you do?”

Holly took another sip.

“Well, according to Carole, they’ve been working with this external company to help manage their IT… a company called Zinc. Zinc is a managed IT provider that assists us with our systems. They help us make sure that everything is up-to-date and secure, stuff like that.”

John nodded.

“So, how did that help?”

“Carole said that Zinc has been keeping a backup of our systems. I didn’t know this, but there’s actually a copy of our entire IT infrastructure stored in the cloud, automatically updated with any changes made. So, whenever I make a new document or spreadsheet, a copy of all my work is stored elsewhere within minutes. Pretty cool, huh?”

John nodded, and Holly continued:

“When HANS.grub3r got into our system, Zinc was ready. All they had to do to help us was completely reset everything and then take the copy stored in our backup and restore the data from there. We were even able to work from the backup while they did so. All in all, we lost maybe a half an hour… nothing compared to what could have happened.”

Holly paused to take another sip while John looked on, impressed.

“Basically, thanks to this backup, you guys could just delete everything and it’s ‘Happy trails, HANS?’”

“Yep,” said Holly, looking pleased. “So, thanks to Zinc, Christmas—and let’s face it, the entire company—is saved.”

“Well then, yippee ki yay.” He held out his arm, offering it to his wife. “Shall we?”

Smiling, Holly took his arm, and they rejoined the party.

THE END

Obviously, this version of Die Hard doesn’t compete with the action-packed original, but how often do you really want your business’ security to be action-packed? Fortunately, you can enjoy the same services that Zinc offered the fictional Nakatomi Corporation in real life. Make a New Year’s resolution to give us a call about our managed services at (713) 979-2090.

In the meantime, have a very happy holiday season from the entire team at Zinc!