Posts Tagged "Ransomware"

By Ryan Woltering on Jun 5, 2017 in Business, Data, Virus and Malware |

As you have probably heard in the news recently, there have been several instances across the global of crypto-viruses affecting tens-of-thousands of machines worldwide. What’s scary about these crypto-viruses is that they execute without anti-virus software detection and they will encrypt all of your personal data (Pictures, Documents, Spreadsheets, etc.) on your hard drive. If you have any external drives connected or if you have any network shared drives connected, the virus will often encrypt the data in those locations as well. Once the data is encrypted, it is impossible to decrypt unless you pay a ransom to the person (or organization) that created the virus. Of course, paying the ransom doesn’t guarantee that they will provide you with the key to unlock your data. Chances are, the data is gone. A new variant of the crypto-viruses recently release is called ‘Petya’. What is especially concerning about this crypto-virus variant is that it also encrypts a portion of your hard drive that Windows looks at in order to boot up! So if this virus gets executed on your system, your computer won’t even boot up normally AND your data will be encrypted. As you can imagine, this has created an absolute nightmare for IT professionals, businesses and end-users worldwide. So the question becomes, how do I protect myself and my business from getting these types of viruses? Well, it’s fairly simple and the steps are outlined below: Windows Updates: Ensure that ALL workstations AND servers are up-to-date with the latest version of Windows updates. Many of these viruses take advantage of holes in Windows that Microsoft has recently patched. By having your systems up-to-date, will ensure a less-likely possibility of being infected by one of these bugs. Having an up-to-date system also ensures that no other bugs can affect you either. Cross Island Computers can ensure that all of your systems are up-to-date with our advanced management software.   Back up: This should go without saying, but ensuring that you have a proper back-up in place for all workstations and servers is absolutely crucial. This isn’t only to help in the event you get one of these bugs, but also in the event of a hardware failure or some...