With the latest attack, Petya, fresh in our minds, we thought it would be a good time to discuss what exactly a ransomware attack is and how you, as a business, can protect yourselves from such.
These cybersecurity attacks not only attack individuals and small to medium sized business, but also large multinational enterprises from around the world.
What is clear is that the attack from the past week, Petya/GoldenEye while similar, is a lot more serious than the attack of the previous month - the WannaCry worm attack that struck hundreds of thousands of computers.
Have we gotten your attention? Good!
The first real way to protect yourself, and your business, is to know what the attacks are and what they look like. And then to move onto how to set yourself up so that you are secured against such an attack.
With the latest ransomware worm, the ransomware infects computers and locks down their hard drives. Then demanding $300 ransom in digital currency Bitcoin.
The email account associated with the ransomware will have been blocked, so even if victims pay, they won't get their files back.
Many experts are calling for people to not pay the ransom.
The virus or worm is spread by infecting multiple computers on a network, and is initially contracted via an outside source, commonly an email.
Many companies were hit severely this time round, as they did not update their Microsoft packages, leaving them vulnerable to the attack.
Am I at risk you may be asking yourself? Well potentially. The great news is that if you have a Windows machine, and it is up to date with security updates, then you are fine. The bad news is that if you are on a network with a machine that is not up to date, then this will cause a problem for you should they get the virus.
Top tips for keeping you and your network secure:
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Keep all servers and network connections up to date with the latest security updates;
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Be sure to backup your computer regularly and keeping a recent backup copy off-site.
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Brief all network users on what phishing emails look like, the importance of not on links;
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Make sure your antivirus software is up to date.