What Can You Do To Defend Yourself Against Ransomware?

Ransomware the preferred method of thieves

Do you remember when cyber thieves would steal the credit card numbers of people, checking account numbers, and other private financial information when they wanted to make money? That was their traditional way of making quick money. Now, the cyber thieves have found a new way of making money. They are now using ransomware, and everyone can become a target.

Ransomware can attack big corporations, health care facilities, government offices, police stations, etc. Since this has become such a big thing, you would think someone will eventually do something to stop these criminals, right? We don’t want you to hold your breath on that one.

You will basically be responsible for fighting against the various attacks from cyber thieves. A hacker will use ransomware to encrypt some of your files or maybe even your entire computer. You will not be able to unlock the files or the computer until you pay the money. Many people who have been victims ransomware have made the decision to pay the money. Even if you made the wise decision to have your computers and files backed up, you will still feel the impact of the ransomware attack.

You will find yourself paying for someone to disinfect all of your machines that were impacted by the ransomware attack and you will also have to restore all the data you backed up. For many businesses, this could mean that you will spend days or weeks trying to get your business back to where it was before the attack.

If you think you may be at risk for an attack, there are various things you can do to make sure your business will be protected.

Back Up Your Data

If you truly want to make those attackers angry, you should make sure your data is backed up. The best way to defend yourself against any type of malicious attack is to not allow anyone to get anywhere near your business’s data. Your data should be backed up on a daily basis. If your data is backed up and someone locks your computers, you will know that your data is safe and secure somewhere else.

If you lose access to 10 years worth of business data that has been saved in the cloud, you will not have to pay a cyber thief to release your data because you will have access to the backups. It is important that you remember that many attackers can lock backups that have been saved to your server or on a storage device. Your backups should be stored offline.

Do Not Fall For The Email Tricks

If you receive an email that looks suspicious, you should stay away from it. You do not want to click a link that can result in malware finding its way into your computers. Emails are not the only way to infect computers with malware. Malware is even being placed on ads. If you truly want to protect yourself from the malicious ads that can seem very real, we recommend that you use appropriate ad blockers. If you want your workers to be on the lookout for suspicious ads, you can consider using training to help them understand what ransomware can look like. Educating the workers can be a huge step in decreasing your office’s chance of being attacked.

Protect Yourself

What Anti-Virus protection are you currently using in your workplace? If you want to stay protected from attacks on your computers, servers, networks, your best option will be to use Webroot. Why should you pay a ransom for your data when you can use Webroot? Ransomware attacks will continue to spread, but this does not mean you will have to be a victim. Contact us today for more information on ransomware attacks and what you can do to avoid being attacked.