We would like to warn our customers and readers for the uprising of cyber crime. Over the last 6 months months, 5 customers have been the victim of ransomware like CryptoWall. This malicious software encrypts automatically all local and network files it can find from an infected machine. The virus penetrates the network mostly by email and is mostly invisible for up-to-date antivirus software.
The infection takes place as soon as you open an attachment. It is not possible to decrypt your encrypted data without paying the "ransom". Some software is available on the internet to decrypt but it doesn't cover all ransomware and might cost a lot of time. A restore from backup is often the only solution.
The federal Cyber Emergency Team reported a raise by 30% in 2015 compared to 2014. They declared that the 3 most important threats are software and hardware vulnerabilities, scans and viruses.
- The vulnerabilities are used for searching for programmatical holes to break into hardware and software.
- The scans are trying to find more information about users and the companies they work for. This is used to create phishing mails that look as credible as possible.
- The viruses are becoming more and more professional and efficient with the introduction of ransomware.
How to protect yourself?
First step: ensure yourself that your backups are operational and usable. We can assist you with our BRT solution.
Second step : make your coworkers aware of the danger: make them think twice before opening any attachment. This step is absolutely crucial.
Third step : secure your infrastructure. Limit the access to the internet for your coworkers, limit the number of persons that have access to the shared parts of your servers, always install the latest security updates of your software, ...
Please contact us if you want more information about protecting your business and making your users more aware of these threats.
