Earlier this morning, many businesses around the world were hit by a new Petya-esque ransomware attack. Tens of thousands of infections have been reported globally, just one month after the WanaCrypt0r outbreak. We do have a vaccine for the infection, that being said, the vaccine does have to be in place before the infection is engaged on your computer or it will already be too late. The good news is if you schedule an appointment, we can apply the vaccine that will prevent you from getting hit by this new attack that is not built into your antivirus. I also want to point out this is the very reason why having an offsite cloud backup is so very important because this ransomware effects local backups as well. If you do not have one we can help setup an offsite backup service while we are there.
It does not appear to be slowing down, ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a major threat that keeps growing over time. According to Cisco’s recent midyear report, it dominates the malware market and is the most profitable malware type in history. Encryption is a key element of crypto-ransomware, since its entire business plan depends on the successful use of encryption to lock the victims’ files or file systems, and victims lacking recovery plans such as data backups. This does not mean that encryption is intrinsically evil. Actually, it is a powerful and legitimate tool employed by individuals, businesses and governments to protect data from unauthorized access. Just like any other powerful tool encryption may be misused, which is exactly what crypto-ransomware does.
Ultimately, there is no such thing as bulletproofing yourself to infections as a whole, the best you can do is be very cautious to links that you might click or downloads that you might be tempted to download, previous to downloading them. Always keep Windows up to date and your antivirus up to date. Whatever you do, never pay for a scam. More often then not, if you do pay you will be out the money from the scam and still not have a working computer.
As always, the Nerds are here to save you. If you need Computer repair or IT Support in Austin or in San Antonio, Call 877-250-8575 or you can book online by going to NerdsinaFlash.com and click the “Book Now” button in the upper right hand corner. Cheers!
