A brief description of the most devastating malware to hit the internet since Stuxnet and recommendations from IRM on how to protect yourself from its devastating effects.

Cryptolocker and it’s variants continue to plague the free world.  It is devastating.  When the virus is executed, it encrypts all the useable data on your computer and any attached network computers that you have access to.  After it is done encrypting everything, it offers to sell you the decryption key for $500 to $1,000.

You can always pay the ransom and hope that the cloogy automated code sends you the decryption key.  If it doesn't (when) and you don’t have a backup of your data, you will effectively lose everything.  Because this malware operates in a way that  is totally foreign to normal virus behavior, current antivirus applications are totally useless.  We have seen some mildly humerous attempts to thwart the encryption process that are all easily countered.

The only prevention method that we can recommend is a complete backup.  Remember that your backup is only as good as the last time you checked that it was working.  Setting up a backup and then not monitoring it on, at least, a weekly basis is not advised. 

Please give us a call to evaluate your current backup scheme.  We recommend some form of local backup to an attached USB hard drive AND an online backup with versioning.