{"podcast":{"title":"The Backup Wrap-Up","slug":"the-backup-wrap-up-758069","podcast_index_feed_id":758069,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/backupwrapup/","website_url":"https://www.backupwrapup.com","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/4670d4e3-81d6-4770-aeca-fe0331f5ce9e/IO00Uwof5u-hiUJElhkbBmKT.jpg","author":"W. Curtis Preston (Mr. Backup)","episode_count":355,"summary":"Formerly known as \"Restore it All,\" The Backup Wrap-up podcast turns unappreciated backup admins into cyber recovery heroes. After a brief analysis of backup-related news, each episode dives deep into one topic that you can use to better protect your organization from data loss, be it from accidents, disasters, or ransomware. The Backup Wrap-up is hosted by W. Curtis Preston (Mr. Backup) and his co-host Prasanna Malaiyandi. Curtis' passion for backups began over 30 years ago when his employer, a $35B bank, lost its purchasing database – and the backups he was in charge of were worthless. After miraculously not being fired, he resolved to learn everything he could about a topic most people try to get away from. His co-host, Prasanna, saw similar tragedies from the vendor side of the house and also wanted to do whatever he could to stop that from happening to others. A particular focus lately has been the scourge of ransomware that is plaguing IT organizations across the globe. That's why in addition to backup and disaster recovery, we also touch on information security techniques you can use to protect your backup systems from ransomware. If you'd like to go from being unappreciate…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-06T22:18:00.235096+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-backup-wrap-up-758069"},"episode":{"title":"Stop Using VSS as a Backup Before Ransomware Deletes Your Shadow Copies","slug":"stop-using-vss-as-a-backup-before-ransomware-deletes-your-shadow-copies","published_at":"2026-04-27T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-backup-wrap-up-758069/stop-using-vss-as-a-backup-before-ransomware-deletes-your-shadow-copies","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-backup-wrap-up-758069","url":"https://www.backupwrapup.com/stop-using-vss-backup-ransomware-deletes-shadow-copies","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/203435f3-57be-436b-a6d5-2ff406fecf0f.mp3","summary":"Stop Using VSS as a Backup Before Ransomware Deletes Your Shadow Copies Ransomware deletes shadow copies using your own built-in Windows tools against you — and if VSS was your backup plan, you just found out the hard way that it wasn't. In this episode, W. Curtis Preston (Mr. Backup), Prasanna Malaiyandi, and Dr. Mike Saylor break down exactly what shadow copies are, why they don't qualify as a real backup, and how attackers are weaponizing vssadmin to wipe your recovery options before you even know you're under attack. If you've got Windows systems and you've been thinking \"eh, we've got shadow copies,\" this episode is for you. We cover the history of VSS — what it was actually designed for, why it became a crutch, and why using it as your primary backup strategy is a bad idea on multiple levels. Performance, the 3-2-1 rule, and the fact that one attacker with admin rights can delete every single copy in seconds. We also get into the living off the land angle: how attackers do recon on your shadow copies, how they use them to scope out valuable data before going full ransomware, and what you can actually do to detect and respond to this behavior using EDR tools. The bottom line: VSS is a great tool. It was just never meant to be your backup. Get a real one. Chapters: 0:00 — Intro 1:39 — Welcome & Book Talk 3:26 — What Are Shadow Copies and Why Do People Use Them as Backups? 9:14 — Performance Problems with VSS as a Backup 10:19 — Living Off the Land: How Ransomware Uses VSS Against You 12:36 — Can You Monitor or Lock Down VSS Admin? 14:26 — Why Shadow Copies Fail the 3-2-1 Rule (They're Not a Backup) 18:01 — How to Protect Yourself: Configuring Your EDR 21:31 — The Local Admin Problem and Security Culture 27:00 — Virtualization, Snapshots, and Shadow Copies 29:00…","meta_description":"Stop Using VSS as a Backup Before Ransomware Deletes Your Shadow Copies Ransomware deletes shadow copies using your own built-in Windows tools against you…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2218,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-backup-wrap-up-758069/episodes/stop-using-vss-as-a-backup-before-ransomware-deletes-your-shadow-copies/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-backup-wrap-up-758069/stop-using-vss-as-a-backup-before-ransomware-deletes-your-shadow-copies.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}