Ransomware

Question 1

Your data is valuable

Answer 1

• Personal data
  
  • Family pictures and videos
  • Important documents
• Organization data
  
  • Planning documents
  • Employee personally identifiable information (PII)
  • Financial information
  • Company private data
• How much is it worth?
  
  • There’s a number

Question 2

Ransomware

Answer 2

• The bad guys want your money
  
  • They’ll take your computer in the meantime
• May be a fake ransom
  
  • Locks your computer “by the police”

• The ransom may be avoided
• A security professional may be able to remove
these kinds of malware

Question 3

Crypto-malware

Answer 3

• New generation of ransomware
  
  • Your data is unavailable until you provide cash
• Malware encrypts your data files
  
  • Pictures, documents, music, movies, etc.
  • Your OS remains available
  • They want you running, but not working

• You must pay the bad guys to obtain the decryption
key
• Untraceable payment system
• An unfortunate use of public-key cryptography

Question 4

Protecting against ransomware

Answer 4

• Always have a backup
  
  • An offline backup, ideally
• Keep your operating system up to date
  
  • Patch those vulnerabilities

• Keep your applications up to date - security patches

• Keep your anti-virus/anti-malware signatures up to
date
• New attacks every hour

• Keep everything up to date