The FBI estimates that Ransomware and it’s most devastating variant THE CRYPTOLOCKER VIRUS, will cost businesses at least 1 Billion Dollars this year
So what is Ransomware and what does it do?
Ransomware is a virus, and like many viruses it gets on your computer through email attachments, website downloads and a multitude of other ways. This viruses goal is simple; get on your machine, spread to every computer/server on your network and then systematically encrypt every file so that you can longer open them.
Once your files are encrypted, the game is over and YOUR FILES ARE LOST FOR GOOD. Your only option at this point is to pay the hackers for the password or restore them from a backup. The problem with this is that while you may be able to restore your files from a backup, the hackers now have a copy of your data on their servers.
The virus is particularly nasty because their encryption is unbreakable and a lot of Anti-virus scanners won’t find it. Unlike the viruses of old that announced themselves, Ransomware won’t make itself known until its confident that there are no other files on your network that it can take. At this point, once your data is encrypted and/or copied to their servers, the hackers announce what they have done and then hold your information hostage. They can sell it, send alerts to your clients that they have successfully stolen your information or simply keep it and never give it back.
The lawsuits, downtime and embarrassments can (and have) been the reason that hundreds of companies have had to close their doors. Target had to shell out nearly 40 Million to cover the lawsuits of the data it had lost to hackers in 2013 and that virus is relatively time by today’s standards.
So how do you protect your business from this virus and its many variants? Your standard best practices always apply, avoid unrecognized email attachments, unsafe downloads locations, thumb drives whose source you are unsure of and always make sure your important data is regularly backed up.
The problem with cyber security however, is that even if you follow all the best precautions in the world, it only takes a lapse in judgement by one user to open you up to the data killer that is ransomware.
That’s where our CryptoLocker Stopper comes in. Our original goal was to find a product but NO PRODUCT would truly stop the virus in its tracks. Some will alert, some will remove the virus after it’s done its damage but none would STOP it.
So, in the interest of providing the best protection for our clients we developed a custom solution.
- Our Crypto-Stopper allows you to easily choose which folders you want monitored
- These monitored folders will lock and disconnect any users/computers/viruses that attempt to encrypt/copy/rename or destroy your files
- Our CryptoLocker Stopper is so simple and easy to use, we’re not sure why no one else has come up with it.
So what are you waiting for, reach out to LME and find out how we can stop you from becoming another scary security statistic
