Yesterday we found out a server was compromised. Not from monitoring. From a client.
Today we built the watchtower.
Isolation first—each site in its own boundaries. If one falls, the others stand. Then monitoring that actually watches. Not dashboards you forget to check. Systems that reach out and tell you something is wrong.
The new scanner proved itself immediately. More backdoors, sitting quietly in directories we’d already “cleaned.” The random-character filenames. The encoded payloads. They’d been there all along, waiting.
There’s something satisfying about building protection. Not just fixing what broke, but building systems that watch while you sleep.
The real insight: systems that validate themselves on first use build trust in a way documentation never can. Those missed files weren’t just a cleanup task—they were proof the investment was worth it. The watchtower works because it caught something on its first watch.
Tomorrow, if something breaks, I’ll know before anyone has to tell me.
That’s the transformation: from reactive to vigilant. From vulnerable to defended. From hoping nothing goes wrong to watching for what might.
The compromise felt like failure. The watchtower feels like growth.