Very cool DDoS infographics courtesy IMPERVA Incapsula

How Ransomware Works and What You Should Do

Understanding how ransomware works is the first step to protecting your interests. Here's what happens and how you can be proactive.

Ransomware is on the rise. 

You may have heard of this term, but aren't sure exactly what it means. 

As a computer user, you should take careful precautions to protect yourself against malware, or know what to do in case of a ransomware attack.

Keep reading to find out how ransomware works and how you can prevent it!

What is Ransomware?

Before diving into how ransomware works, let's take a look at what ransomware actually is.

A type of malware, ransomware is delivered to your computer system through various means.

Ransomware can make its way to you through the following:

• Infected email attachments
• Drive-by-downloads
• Socially engineered malware
• Malvertising
• Hacked websites

There are different types of ransomware. However, each and every type will prevent you from using your computer normally. 

How Ransomware Works

Ransomware works by first infecting a computer. Then, using modern cryptography methods, it encrypts files.

Once encrypted, the files cannot be decrypted without the "key." The key is what hackers will provide once you have paid them ransom. 

Unfortuantely, hackers can target any computer users. Whether it's a home computer you're working on, endpoints in an enterprise network, or even servers used by a government agency or healthcare provider, ransomware can affect you.

This means ransomware can get onto your computer from nearly any source that any other malware (including viruses) can come from. 

Ransomware can prevent you from accessing programs such as Windows, encrypt files so that you cannot use them, and/or stop certain web applications from running, such as your web browser.

What to do After a Ransomware Attack

1. Is your computer part of a network? If so, remove the infected system from the network.
2. If you feel it's necessary, create a copy of your disk or the impacted files for analysis later on (this may be needed for decryption of files).
3. Do you have a healthy system restore point? If so, see if you can go back and try if that works for you.
4. If you have recent backups of your data, that's great news! Format and clean and reinstall Windows. Then, restore your backed up data--this will give you a fresh start. 
5. Boot into Safe Mode. Then, run your antivirus software deep-scan--hopefully, that will be able to disinfect your computer, although it's not always the answer.
6. Identify the ransomware that infected your computer. To do this, you can use a free online service, such as ID Ransomware.
7. If you successfully identify the ransomware, check to see if a ransomware decrypt tool is available for your type of ransomware. Then, make use of what you can find.
8. If the ransomware totally blocked access to your computer, give Kaspersky WindowsUnlocker a try, as it can clean up a ransomware infected Registry and give you access back. 
9. Finally, remember to report your ransomware case to your local cyber crime cell, police, or the FBI. 

How to Prevent a Ransomware Attack

The best solution to ransomware is to be safe on the internet. This includes with emails and online chat. 

Check out the list below for how to make sure you stay safe on the internet:

• Don't click on a link on a webpage, in an email, or in a chat message unless you are positive that the page or sender is trustworthy.
• If you're ever unsure if you can trust the page or sender--don't click the link!
• You can catch on to fake emails or webpages if you spot bad spelling or if they look unusual. Keep an eye out for strange spellings of company names or unusual spaces, symbols or punctuation.

What do you know about how ransomware works and how to protect yourself from it? Tell us about your experiences with ransomware in the comments!

Are the Biggest Cyber Security Risks Your Employees?

It's true - studies show that within businesses, the biggest cyber security risks come from those employed. What can you do to protect your business? Read on.

We all want to believe that our employees are honest, hardworking people who would do nothing to hurt our company. But the truth is, whether, by malice or accident, the biggest cyber security risks are almost always going to be your employees, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to ignore the string of high-profile cyber-attacks that are now a regular occurrence.

Here’s what you can do about it.

1. Develop responsive IT structures and teams

One of the most common complaints about IT security and employees is that IT moves too slowly for them to do their jobs effectively. Particularly with millennials and digital natives enter the workforce and their familiarity with cloud-based computing, the temptation is to install and use secure company resources and do work with insecure tools, devices, products, and services.

What’s more, staff members (who, remember just want to do their job AND are under pressure to do more less using IT) often feel that the approvals process with the IT staff is just too slow.

The result? It becomes impossible for IT to even know where their resource should be spent, let alone the most efficient way to spend them.

Fortunately, there’s a solution that can work wonders. A lot of cloud applications are, in fact, secure enough to mitigate any cyber security risks.

The only problem is that IT needs to know about them ahead of time. So the best way to help yourself is to make sure that your IT team is fully integrated and extremely responsive to new application requests.

If you have more time and resources available, it pays to build your IT infrastructure so that you can support at least some cloud SaaS products, so you can say yes at least some of the time.

2. Explain the cyber security risks associated with common behaviors

Did you know that many workers use the same password for everything? OR write down their passwords and stick them in a notebook, on their computers or (worse) store them in a Word file on their computer?

And this sort of behavior that creates cyber security risks isn’t exactly difficult to understand. Workers are busy, and they don’t want to spend time doing stuff like double logins or to change their passwords all the time (or trying to remember what their passwords are!)

But if IT teams make an effort to explain why and create awareness about the very real risk of cyber security risks, then people are a lot more likely to comply with more stringent security requirements. Remember: even though you can dictate security policy, it’s a lot more effective if everyone is actually on board rather than just going through the motions.

3. Focus your security energy where it’s needed most

Finally, the best thing you can do for your security and the keeping your network secure from your employees is to focus your energy where it’s most needed. Building MORE security around set pieces of your network and letting most of the network stay at a more functional level will increase your safety and reduce the friction between the IT teams and employees.

This compromise means that you get a high level of security, and they get to do their jobs faster and easier.

Getting your team to take cyber security risks seriously doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. By making small changes, you can shift how your employees think about security, and thus make your whole network safer.