Ransomware Attack and Prevention

Summary:

Avoid clicking on e-mail attachments and links.

We have implemented several prevention methods.

You may have seen the news over the past few days about a “Ransomware” attack that hit Europe and spread quickly after that. With our existing security and your help, we can prevent this attack from affecting us.

What happened?

Ransomware is a nasty bit of computer malware (bad software) that will encrypt your files making them unusable unless you pay a hefty fine. There is no guarantee that you would even get your files back if the fine was paid! So, the best bet is to be vigilant and avoid the attack all together.

What is OIT Doing?

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has implemented many layers of security in order to prevent these types of attacks from affecting us. We use Anti-Virus protection on each PC on our network which has been updated to protect against this attack. Additionally, PCs on our network have had patches applied to them to help prevent this attack and our firewall has had updates to block the attack.

What Should I be doing?

One of the ways these attack spread is by clicking on links or attachments in e-mails. Therefore, the best way to prevent infection is to avoid clicking e-mail links or attachments unless you are certain of the e-mail’s origin and were expecting the content. Additionally, make sure your critical files are on network drives (H drive P drive for example) or on Dropbox where they are backed up and can be restored if they are hit with infection.

For your home computer, make sure you patch it regularly, have a virus scanner and back up your files. In the technical links, you will find a PC Magazine review of some Antivirus solutions you can use for free for your home computer.