Ransomware global attack
I am sure you will be aware of the recent attacks on every system from those run by private individuals and small businesses to national services and global corporations, and how much disruption they have caused. Here’s a heads up…
Ransomware is probably the nastiest and most prolific form of malicious software around at the moment. It encrypts your data so you can’t read it, very quickly and very effectively. It demands a ransom to decrpyt the data, usually in excess of £150 (but paid in “Bitcoin” which makes the recipient untraceable) and rising the longer you wait. It can bypass most simple anti-virus software, and avoiding infection therefore requires very specific attentiveness and security awareness. Even the most vigilant people can be caught, though. Be extremely careful.
There IS protection that can ensure your system is extremely unlikely to be compromised, that can save you the cost of paying the criminals or a specialist to recover your system from being encrypted.
I strongly recommend subscribing to Sophos’ Anti-ransomware protection which I can help you with. The subscription for a private individual licence is less than £50, and I can now provide it with a full installation service for a total of £80.
If you run any operating system from Windows XP to Windows 8.1 you are now at extremely high risk. You should run all Windows updates immediately, whether you intend to use the Sophos protection or not.
Please get in touch if you need assistance. Once your system is infected, it is too late to recover anything without paying the ransom.
Some receiving this message may already be protected – but I’m notifying everyone as a matter of course… because you might have other computers that are not protected, as well as the one I’ve already worked on!
Stay safe. Thanks for reading.