TECHNIQUES ON HOW TO COMBAT RANSOMWARE
Ransomware is one of the most dangerous threats in a digital security of the present times. Considered to be the most alarming threat because it is capable of encrypting your files and keeping you from accessing your own computer and data. It can be costly, especially if you are unaware of how to combat ransomware.
Dangers of Ransomware
In order to fight ransomware properly, you must first analyze what are the possible dangers you can encounter from ransomware. Once you have identified them, you will know how to combat ransomware accordingly.
Danger For Mobiles Devices
It is common to focus attention on securing the desktop or laptop computers than other devices. But not all know that even the mobile devices are susceptible to Ransomware attacks, including smartphones and tablets. Since the criminals knew that there are a lot of people are now using Android-based gadgets, they are targeting this OS to infect many targets.
Danger For Backups
Criminals are now improving their attacks by including the clean backups to be encrypted and impose a ransom for that. They knew that having a backup is one of the ways on how to combat ransomware, therefore, it’s their goal to compromise also the created backups. So if you want to learn how to combat ransomware, make sure to have a copy of multiple backups, both on the local computer and in cloud storage.
Danger For All Kinds of Operating Systems
People are used to the belief that it’s only the Windows computer are prone to viruses. That is not true anymore, today all can be attack by viruses and malware. Many ransomware are now created to attack Mac and Linux computers too. Criminals know that Linux has a small market share for desktop operating systems, but they are the majority market share in servers category.
Danger in Portraying to be Legitimate Software
The classic way of ransomware to enter and infect computers is by email attachments. Now, it has improved a lot. It develops multiple ways, if you are not familiar with how to combat ransomware, there is a big chance that your computer will be infected. Now, it poses to be a legitimate software present everywhere. Sometimes, it looks to be legit Windows update or useful applications and utilities. All of these are the method used to scatter ransomware on many mobile devices and computers. You really have to verify if the software you are downloading is legitimate and not ransomware.
Danger in Total Disk Encryption
Petya, the most prominent kind of ransomware that was discovered in 2016, infected lots of Windows users via email attachments. This ransomware was very brutal because it targeted the MBR(Master Boot Record) of Windows. Instead of encrypting the regular folder like My Documents, it encrypted the MBR so that the computer won’t be able to load any programs aside from the ransomware. In short, you won’t be able to use your computer starting from turning it on. Not unless you pay the ransom it asks.
Prevention
Securing your computer’s data and applications are the highest priority for your system. Whether you are running on Windows or other operating systems, desktop, laptop or even on a mobile device, you are susceptible to ransomware attacks. Learning how to combat ransomware is a must for everyone. As a solution, it is important to follow these 5 simple steps in securing your computer.
Make a regular clean copy of backup, in other disk and in cloud storage.
Make sure your operating system is regularly patched and updated.
Include all your running application in the computer on your software update.
Always be vigilant on any suspicious files sent to you.
Utilizing a mail filtering is a great advantage on how to combat ransomware.
Xcitium Make sure to subscribe for a trusted brand of security software for your protection.
Conclusion How To Combat Ransomware
Ransomware can have lots of tricky ways to infect your computer. Criminal are doing all available methods to harm people and get money from them. It is now our responsibility to learn how to combat ransomware and protect our devices. Cleaning, maintaining, and securing our computers should be in our daily routine as part of preparing for any ransomware attacks.
Related Sources:
Endpoint Detection
Endpoint Detection and Response
Trojan Virus
Ransomware Software