The biggest ransomware threats

magine opening your laptop one morning and discovering all your documents and photos are encrypted — but not by you. A message on the screen in broken English demands a ransom to unlock your files. It's a horrifying scenario that is far too real for many people.

In the past few years, ransomware attacks have increased with the growth in the use of digital storage over physical record keeping for critical documents and treasured photos. Take a look at the history of ransomware, how it impacted users in the past year, and what you can expect in the future.

The basics
Ransomware is a type of malware designed to hijack computers so hackers can force victims to pay a ransom to regain access. It can infect your computer when you download an innocent-looking email attachment or visit a website that surreptitiously executes malicious code that ultimately encrypts critical files or denies access to the computer. The two main forms of this malware are currently widespread:

Blocker ransomware locks users out of basic computer functions. For example, it might deny access to your desktop by partially disabling files the computer uses to boot. You could still use your computer to pay the ransom, but otherwise it would be useless. The good news? Locker malware typically avoids encrypting critical files in favor of simply locking you out, meaning there's less chance of total data destruction.

Crypto ransomware encrypts your critical data — documents, photos, and videos — while leaving more basic computer functions untouched. Crypto creators often include a countdown in their ransom demand. If you don't pay by the deadline, all your files are deleted. Many users ignore or don't understand the importance of backing up files to an external storage device, so they often choose to pay the ransom because they can’t see any other way of getting their files back.

Find more : best protection against ransomware









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Invert Colors on Microsoft Office Picture Manager

Microsoft Office Picture Manager manages and edits digital pictures. This program includes "Hue and saturation" settings that allow you to adjust the color on a scale. Click and drag the slider on the "Amount" or "Hue" scale for a custom look. Saving this edited file as a separate copy from the original keeps the original file intact for reference. Step 1 Open the saved picture file in "Microsoft Office Picture Manager." Step 2 Click on "Edit Pictures" on the Formatting toolbar. Step 3 Click on "Color" in the "Edit Pictures" pane to the right of the picture. This pane includes "Hue and saturation settings." Step 4 Click on the "Hue and saturation settings," such as "Amount" or "Hue." Click on the slider to achieve the desired effect. You can also enter a value in the settings text box. Step 5 Save this file as a copy with a file name different from the original
Read more

Performance evaluation for proactive network management

  Local area networks (LAN and Wi-Fi) are decisive factors in the ups and downs of IT performance, alongside the computer center. But running the LAN infrastructure requires considerable staff and financial resources. T-Systems takes over this task on request and guarantees success with its SLA (service level agreement). This arrangement gives companies security and facilitates a high-performing company network IT employees can breathe a sigh of relief. With managed LAN services, T-Systems takes over all tasks around the active components of the company network. T-Systems configures ports and Wi-Fi access points. As well as this, the managed service contractor provides the necessary hard- and software, including IT services. Services like proactive monitoring and technical reporting are of course also included in the agreed all-round and care-free SLA service. Cloud services are also growing in significance. T-Systems has recognized this and offers a network solution controlled complet
Read more

What is the LM authentication protocol?

The LM authentication protocol, also known as LAN Manager and LANMAN, was invented by IBM and used extensively by Microsoft operating systems prior to NT 4.0. It uses a password encrypting technology that is now considered insecure. LM works by creating a "hash" of your password, as follows: Breaking the password into seven-character chunks: If the password length is not a multiple of seven (i.e., 7, 14, 21, 28...), LM pads the remainder of each chunk with zeroes to make it a full seven bytes long. For example, a ten-letter-long password would be divided into a seven-character-long chunk and a three-character-long one, and the smaller one would have zeroes added to it to push it up to seven characters. Mapping all lowercase letters into uppercase: For example, Dog becomes DOG. Encrypting each chunk: LM uses each chunk as a 56-bit DES (a standardized cipher standard) key to encrypt the following string: KGS!@#$%. Concatenating those strings (i.e., linking them end-to-e
Read more