Randsomware

2 Comments

• Ransomware isn’t anything new. But it does seem to be gaining more traction it is even offered as a service now. In my field of IT Support we see this kind of attack pretty often. I always cringe when I remote into a PC and see the encrypted files, I pretty much know my day is shot. Most of the time it is caused by someone opening and email or going to a bad link on a webpage. Best way to prevent this type of infection is to inform the employees how to look out for troublesome emails or websites, and inform them of what to do if they notice they have been infected. Best advice if you do get infected is to unplug the device from the internet/network and hope you have some backups to restore to. If you don’t have current backups there is some software that can remove the encryption but the software is constantly changing and the software isn’t that reliable. The only other option you will have is to pay the encryption fee to unlock your PC. Typically it is in the 3-500 dollar range but it can always be changed. I believe we will defiantly be seeing more of this attack as the access to the software is more available to the masses.

• Ransomware is nasty and very harmful because of its effectiveness. I would say a way to combat this in the corporate world would be to give all employees a refresher lessons on the security of email and websites with an added emphasis on ransomware and the damage is causes. Also all technicians that work for companies should update their backup procedures to insure that important data is safe, and if an incident occurs the back up data is not infected. If you look at the cost of paying for the ransomware a company should be more then happy to purchase extra equipment for proper backup needs and added security.