29 Mar
2016
29 Mar
'16
8:44 a.m.
Dear All,
I just deleted a "psychology teacher" message that appeared on the
list -- the result I fear of someone being hacked.
I work in IT in my day job and we spend a lot of time reminding people
DO NOT OPEN any message that is in any way suspicious and NEVER,
NEVER, NEVER click on links in messages that you have any doubt might
not be legit.
And despite that, we have had two users get infected with
Crypto-Locker type viruses that have propagated to servers that we had
to delete and replace with backups.
The crypto lock stuff is especially concerning -- it's not just
malicious -- it's a business. And so the bad guys have an incentive
to keep refining and flooding the internet with this stuff.
I recently purchased a backup drive and have backed up all my
computers and keep the drive off-line. That way, if my systems should
get hit, the virus can't propagate to the backups. this included my
files in the cloud -- google drive and the like. I'm not sure a
crypto locker today can get there, but by tomorrow, it probably will.
Like the old sergeant Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues used to day:
"Hey, let's be careful out there."
Sincerely,
Ridge
--
Ridge Kennedy [Exit 145]
When you stumble, make it part of the dance. - Anonymous
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at
least once. And we should call every truth false which was not
accompanied by at least one laugh. - Friedrich Nietzsche
29 Mar
29 Mar
9:09 a.m.
Thanks Ridge.
It gets scarier & more frustrating all the time. Like answering the phone & seeing
your own name & phone number show up on the caller ID on your home phone.
Thanks for the suggestion of the offline full backup.
Patricia
Patricia Campbell
Newtown, CT
On Mar 29, 2016, at 8:44 AM, Ridge Kennedy
srk3nn3dy(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers] <trad-dance-callers(a)yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
Dear All,
I just deleted a "psychology teacher" message that appeared on the
list -- the result I fear of someone being hacked.
I work in IT in my day job and we spend a lot of time reminding people
DO NOT OPEN any message that is in any way suspicious and NEVER,
NEVER, NEVER click on links in messages that you have any doubt might
not be legit.
And despite that, we have had two users get infected with
Crypto-Locker type viruses that have propagated to servers that we had
to delete and replace with backups.
The crypto lock stuff is especially concerning -- it's not just
malicious -- it's a business. And so the bad guys have an incentive
to keep refining and flooding the internet with this stuff.
I recently purchased a backup drive and have backed up all my
computers and keep the drive off-line. That way, if my systems should
get hit, the virus can't propagate to the backups. this included my
files in the cloud -- google drive and the like. I'm not sure a
crypto locker today can get there, but by tomorrow, it probably will.
Like the old sergeant Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues used to day:
"Hey, let's be careful out there."
Sincerely,
Ridge
--
Ridge Kennedy [Exit 145]
When you stumble, make it part of the dance. - Anonymous
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at
least once. And we should call every truth false which was not
accompanied by at least one laugh. - Friedrich Nietzsche
6:41 p.m.
On Mar 29, 2016, at 8:44 AM, Ridge Kennedy srk3nn3dy(a)gmail.com [trad-dance-callers]
wrote:
And despite that, we have had two users get infected
with
Crypto-Locker type viruses that have propagated to servers that we had
to delete and replace with backups.
The crypto lock stuff is especially concerning -- it's not just
malicious -- it's a business. And so the bad guys have an incentive
to keep refining and flooding the internet with this stuff.
I work for a company that allows users to back their data up into our "cloud".
Starting in November 2013, we started encountering customers that had been hit with this
virus and wanted their files back. I never expected that it would persist for this long,
but I believe we have 10 to 20 phone calls a day from users hit with the virus.
We are able to restore their unencrypted files because we keep at least 2 copies of each
file. By the time they call us, we have backed up the "bad" version, but still
have the good version to return to them.
Up until a few months ago, this had all been in the abstract. However, two businesses
that different parts of my extended family work for have been hit (and were fixed because
they were users of the online backup software that keeps multiple versions), and a person
in my company got hit (even though we have all had training about suspicious emails, have
anti-virus software, etc.
I recommend that you keep you data backed up with two different methods, perhaps a local
external disk drive and some cloud storage system, that the system be automatic, that you
test it every so often by restoring an important file, and that you consider what would
happen if one of these encryption viruses encrypted every file reachable from your
computer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware
--
Clark Baker, Belmont, MA
cmbaker(a)tiac.net
2956
days inactive
2956
days old
trad-callers@lists.sharedweight.net
2 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Clark Baker -
P. Campbell -
Ridge Kennedy