Avoiding (and Surviving) Ransomware
By far, the biggest story in malware over the past two years or more is the rise of ransomware. This species of malicious software seeks to encrypt a computer or user's files then hold them hostage, demanding a ransom in order to provide the key to decrypt the data. While the first modern ransomware began to appear in 2005, it was the emergence of the CryptoLocker ransomware in 2013 that began the sharp increase in ransomware incidents that we are still observing today. Today, ransomware has largely displaced "banking trojans" and other financial and credit card information stealing malware as the most common form of financially-motivated malware in use today. How to Be Prepared for Ransomware Attacks Have adequate backup and restoration capability. While obviously we hope to avoid being hit by ransomware, we want to be prepared in case it does successfully strike us. Ensure that backups are frequent, and (very importantly) that backup file locations are NOT in w...