Ransom ware attacks are becoming more and more common these days so I was wondering how others here protect from attack. Basically for those who don't know what it is, a hacker takes control of your computer and blocks you from accessing your personal files until you pay a ransom.
If I have a SSD hard drive running my operating system and programs and all my personal files on a separate hard drive(contained within the computer itself), is this sufficient to protect my data from these kind of attacks?
Nope. If it is in your computer, and most likely anywhere on your network, then it is not protected. I have read even some network drive mapped cloud storage is not safe either. You need to disconnect a storage drive from your computer to be completely safe, and while you are at it, may as well be off-site to safeguard against fire and natural disaster too.
I clicked a link, that seemed to have that in it. I reached over and shut my computer down... hopefully before it fully installed.
Sure enough, I caught it fast enough. Never seen them again.
N
Nate The Surveyor, post: 375842, member: 291 wrote: I clicked a link, that seemed to have that in it. I reached over and shut my computer down... hopefully before it fully installed.
Sure enough, I caught it fast enough. Never seen them again.N
Did it come through an email or website?
It was an email... looked legit. NOT SO!
Never ever ever ever open an email attachment from someone you don't know. :pinch:
And unfortunately, sometimes from people you do know.
Got a Google doc email from a friend called him and his computer was infected.
I've received some off the wall emails from friends and people I've done business with.
They all had an attachment and the subject line and greeting were obviously not from the person whose email address was on the sender's line.
Some of them had members of this site as the sender and all of them were hacked and/or spoofed to look that way.
If it don't look right to me I either delete it, send to FBI as suspicious mail or hit spam depending upon what it is.
When I know their phone number, I will call them and say that the email was deleted and ask what they wanted.
Don't ever open any attachment or link from an unknown source.
:gammon:
I got stung last year. Luckily, I have two identical SSDs containing only OS & essential applications - a spare cloned from the on-board disk. Data resides on conventional 7200 rpm internal, backed up to external..
When the "FBI" blue screen came up accusing me of illegally downloading music files from Usenet (moi? non!), and telling me how I could pay to get my PC back, I swapped the SSDs, formatted the bugged one & recloned it, & went on about my business. Other than a panicked minute seeing my future self in a Federal Penitentiary, & 15 minutes swapping disks - no harm, no foul.
SS
Is a back up to one drive or similar of data files sufficient?
Sergeant Schultz, post: 375936, member: 315 wrote: illegally downloading music files from Usenet (moi? non!)
Remember "Napster"? (not Natester) If "they" were to enforce laws concerning downloading music I would have been in the pen years ago. I downloaded around 3,000 mp3's from them.:-O
Is a back up to one drive or similar of data files sufficient?
Data files on discrete internal drive "E:" SEPARATE from SSD "C:" were unaffected, so there was no need to restore data from external USB "F:" drive.
I got one that came in thru a very legit looking email supposedly from Quicken. We deal with them for our Quickbooks so the secretary opened it. After a few hours several files wouldn't open and we shut down the network. One of my guys at the time was savvy enough to isolate and delete the virus. We had just updated our backup drive so we lost a month of data and was able to recover some from flash drives and a portable hard drive I carry around. There was nothing suspicious about the email- very deceptive. Had the correct address, logo, all the trimmings. It's a mean world out there.
