How to protect computer from ransomware Attack easy steps | how to be safe from ransomware

Easy Steps To Protect System from ransomware attack

WannaCry Based on a vulnerability in Windows Operating System, first discovered by the NSA, and then publicly disclosed to the world by the Shadow Brokers (Hactivist).

Biggest ever cyber attack on May 12th 2017 in Internet history.A ransomware WannaCry affected systems through the web, with the damage over more than 150 countries.

In the first few hours, 200,000 machines over 150+ countries were infected. Big organizations such as Renault or the NHS were struck and crippled by this ransomware attack.

Ransomware has been a growing trend for the past two years to affect systems and ask for money from the victims, and this is just a culmination, a grand reveal to the wider world of just how big of a threat it is in the cyber attacks. But we’ve been writing about this for a while now.

Some time ago, a pizza delivery guy walked into our office in delhi. While we signed for the package for the delivery, he came to know that we work in cyber security and asked that:

My entire music video collection from the past 5 years got encrypted by ransomware attack.

"Is there anything I can do about it?

They are asking for $700 for the decryption key."

My first thought was: I hope he has a data backup. So I had to ask:

Do you have a backup of your data?

He looked down and said a bitter „no”.

This scenario is unfolding right now somewhere in the world anywhere. Maybe even in your city or anywhere in the world.

In this very moment, if victim is clicking a link in a spam email or activating macros in a malicious document it will give a reverse connection to the attacker.

In a few seconds, all their data will be encrypted and they’ll have just a few days to pay hundreds of dollars to get it back by decrypt key. Unless they have a backup, which most people don’t have.

Ransomware creators and other cyber criminals involved in the malware economy are remorseless. They’ve automated their attacks to the point of targeting anyone and everyone.

Take this story from the New York Times:

MY mother received the ransom note on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It popped up on her computer screen soon after she’d discovered that all of her files had been locked. “Your files are encrypted,” it announced. “To get the key to decrypt files you have to pay 500 USD.” If my mother failed to pay within a week, the price would go up to $1,000. After that, her decryption key would be destroyed and any chance of accessing the 5,726 files on her PC — all of her data — would be lost forever.

Sincerely, CryptoWall.

I hope you’re reading this post to be prepared for a malware attack. Prevention is absolutely the best security strategy in this case.

This guide is packed with concrete information on:

1. What is ransomware attack?
2. How it evolved ?
3. Who ransomware creators target most frequently systems?
4. How ransomware spreads via the websites?
5. How ransomware infections happen online?
6. Why ransomware often goes undetected by antivirus or Intrusion systems?

What is ransomware?

Ransomware is a sophisticated piece of code for making a malware that blocks the victim’s access to his/her files in his/her system, and the only way to regain access to the files is to pay a ransom.

Locally, on the PC

1. we should not store important data only on my PC.
2. we should have 2 backups of my data: on an external hard drive and in the cloud – Dropbox/Google Drive/etc.
3. The Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive/etc. application on computer should not turned on by default. You should open them once a day, to sync your data, and close them once this is done.

Certified Ethical Hacker

1. Your operating system and the software which you use is up to date, including the latest security updates.
2. For daily use, you should not use an administrator account on your computer. you should use a guest account with limited privileges.
3. You should have turned off macros in the Microsoft Office suite – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
4. In the browser
5. You should have removed the following plugins from your browsers: Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Java and Silverlight. If you absolutely have to use them, you have to set the browser to ask  if you want to activate these plugins when needed.
6. you should adjusted your browser’s security and privacy settings for increased protection.
7. you must removed outdated plugins and add-ons from your browsers. you should only kept the ones which you use on a daily basis and  keep them updated to the latest version.
8. You must use an ad-blocker to avoid the threat of potentially malicious ads.

Online behavior

11. You should never open spam emails or emails from unknown senders.
12. You should  never download attachments from spam emails or suspicious emails.
13.     You should never click links in spam emails or suspicious emails.

Anti-ransomware security tools

14. You should use a reliable, paid antivirus product that includes an automatic update module and a real-time scanner.
15. You understand the importance of having a traffic-filtering solution that can provide proactive anti-ransomware protection.

Thank You 

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• Pinterest

You Might Also Like

Security Awareness

« PREV

NEXT »