I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ransomware attacks. That is, when a virus infects your computer and encrypts all your files. Then, you get a notice that says if you pay a certain amount of money you will get access to your files. I gather it’s the most common malware out there right now. You can read more about what ransomware is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware
I’ve recently read multiple consumer articles on how to best protect yourself and I believe most of what I read is just wrong. Those articles say things like you can recover files that have not been encrypted yet if you catch it early, cloud is a good solution because the ransom ware can not infect the cloud. I call BS on that.
I assume ransomware is going to install itself on your computer and lie dormant for months so that all your backups to the cloud will ultimately have unusable data on them. I also believe ransom ware will go after all your drive shares and if you are backing up to a local hard disk through an unprotected share, that will get targeted also.
Here is what I am doing.
- I use Acronis and have two backup schemes that both go to NAS (network attached storage). One uses ftp and the other uses a username password unknown to my normal windows explorer.
- I use Dropbox and have bought packrat which stores my backup history forever. I believe that way I always have a backup though it may be very old
- I run WebRoot virus protection to minimize exposure though I know this does not stop zero day attacks. I’m hoping it stops most attacks though and since I’m not a huge target to the bad guys this is likely enough.
I feel like this is as much as I can do. HTH’s.
Best Regards in Paranoia, -Peter