With the ransomware epidemic continuing to spread, you should know all of your security options…
We have always said backing up your data is crucial. We stand by our word. However, you must also have alternative forms of protection beyond backing up your data. PC Pitstop CEO, Rob Cheng, provides five major reasons why you should not use backups as a stand alone form of security against ransomware attacks:
1. You don’t know which files ransomware will encrypt beforehand, so there is always a chance that even if you are backing up, that there will be a missed file.
2. Just because you have backed up your files, you still have to restore the computer to the way it was using backups. It may be possible. There are many companies that have paid ransoms not because they weren’t doing backups but because the downtime was too big to restore the backups.
3. If you setup your backup as a network share, or as an external hard drive and then the backup hard drive is live when the ransomware hits, then it will get encrypted too.
4. Now that ransomware is becoming an epidemic, they are playing it hard. They want to get you and your company on monthly renewal.
5. The biggest reason why backups are not the way is because ransomware can disable a backup. The problem is that there is a foreign piece of software running on your computer. It’s entire goal is to extract as much money as it can from you. If it figures out that backup is stopping it from achieving its goal, then it will attack the backup first and encrypt second. The only real solution is to stop the malware from executing in the first place. It is flawed to let the malware run, and then try to compensate for the damage after the fact.
To reinforce Rob’s points, Horry County Schools had their files backed up; however they chose to pay the ransom instead because it would be too time consuming to restore their own systems through the backups they already had.
As Rob suggests, being proactive is the best approach. For home users, PC Matic provides superior security protection and has been proven to provide the best proactive detection for malicious files. For business users, Tech Sentry can provide your with the ease of mind knowing your files are safe from the ransomware threat.
