It was 11:23 PM.
I was shutting down my system for the day.
The terminal asked:
“Are you sure you want to shut down?”
Just as I was about to click Yes, my phone buzzed.
Our social media lead was calling.
“Didn’t you check the time?” I thought.
“Just pick it. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“It looks like our apps have been attacked,” he said.
Fear was obvious in his voice.
I froze.
The shutdown timer was already counting down.
10 seconds left.
I clicked No.
By the time I logged into the server, the apps were already offline.
CPU usage was at 100%.
Malware.
The only safe option was clear: wipe the server and rebuild on a clean OS.
Moments like this don’t reward panic. They reward preparation.
One question immediately came to mind — the question I always ask when designing infrastructure: “If we lost this server right now, could we rebuild everything in under 30 minutes?”
The answer was yes.
What could have been hours of downtime turned into a controlled recovery.
Fresh OS.
Clean environment.
Apps restored.
12:20 AM.
I shut down my system — this time for real.
If you’re a founder, ask yourself this: If your server went down right now, how long would it take you to recover?
30 minutes?
3 hours?
A full day?
- Downtime is expensive.
- Panic is more expensive.
- Infrastructure that can’t be rebuilt quickly is a liability.
If this question scares you, it’s probably time to rethink your infrastructure.
DevOps
Startups
Infrastructure