People have data. When it comes to storing them, the more valuable they are, the more they attract the eyes of the unwanted. Ransomware has been used by plenty of times to hold people's data hostages.
In ransom for money, ransomware not only pose privacy concerns, but also catastrophe to businesses.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that threatens the owner of the data, or blocking access to it, unless a ransom is paid.
While some ransomware may just lock the system in a way which is not difficult to counter, more advanced malware uses a encryption that makes the victim's files inaccessible. Although not common, the attacker may free the files from being hostage in exchange for extortion, usually in bitcoins.
What makes this type of attack dangerous is that the attack can be widespread, and anyone can become a target. So not only large enterprises or government entities, regular and average users can also fall as victims.
Fortunately for people, there are several ways they can do to protect themselves against ransomware attacks.
Updates And Upgrades
Know that older versions of a software tends to have more vulnerabilities and security issues than their newer versions. Notable ransomware attacks use exploited vulnerabilities on users' operating system to spread attacks across networks.
While the creators of the OS can patch the security holes, it's always up to the user to install them or not. Those that fall from ransomware attacks are usually those people that hadn't been bothered to install updates or upgrades on their devices.
As a precaution, you need to have all your installed software updated and upgraded to their newest versions. Most notably, your operating system, web browsers, antivirus, firewall and anything that works with internet connection.
Having the latest versions of software installed, is your first defense against ransomware, or any other malware for that matter.
Encrypt Your Drives
You can fight ransomware with encryption. While it sounds ironic, but a full-encryption of a hard drive will make its files inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have the passcode.
Encrypting your hard drive won't stop hackers from holding your files as hostages. But the thing is that the files won't be usable for them. So if your files contain sensitive information, hackers won't be able to make use of them, let alone exploiting them.
To take advantage of a drive's encryption, you can separate your files into different drives, and encrypt them based on their sensitivity and frequency of use. Only unlock the drives you need to access the files, and encrypt them again after use.
Have Only What You Use And Discard The Rest
Every operating system comes with a load of features the creators think will be useful for users. However, as no product is perfect, more features mean more flaws to take care of.
If you have plenty of apps or software installed, they may open up network ports and internet connections without your knowledge. In many cases, attackers use that same channel to carry out their attacks.
To minimize the chances of attacks, you may want to disable the software you're not using anymore, or just uninstall it entirely. The same goes with web browsers' extensions and features available on your operating system.
And in case you have antivirus or firewall that gives you persistent notification, it would be wiser to not disable the feature. Removing or disabling any of its features will make your device more prone to attacks. Getting used to make a few extra clicks or checking security prompts is a lot better than risking your device.
Don't Fall For Schemes
Always look over your shoulders. Hackers use plenty of ways to extract information from you.
One of the common method for them to carry out their attacks, is to use some sorts of social engineering attacks. So instead of carrying their attacks the technical way, social engineering attacks are meant to deceive you.
Phishing scam is the most usual strategy for attackers to extract information from you. Using the strategy, they send potential victims with email messages containing infected attachment or links. Phishing emails often appear to come from a legitimate and trustable sources such as a friend, colleagues, banks, social media websites, security company, your hosting provider or others.
The only powerful way to not fall for such strategy is to use a good human judgement. And as a rule of thumb, never open email attachment sent by an unknown person. Even if the email is from someone you trust, act with discretion. It will be also wiser for your to re-type or double-check any links you receive.
Things to notice include the common ways phishing emails are created. Some may sound too good to be true, clickbait email subject, have bad grammar and/or spellings or having odd sender's email address (including free email addresses).
People usually fell for phishing scams for numerous reasons, including: greed, urgency, fear, complacency, desire to please, curiosity and others.
Protect Your System's Administrator Account
If you can have several users logged in into your device, always make sure that the account that has the most privilege (administrator account, for example) is secured. Only use it when needed.
On a daily basis, you can use another account which is registered as a regular user with limited accessibility. This limited account does make your work a bit more difficult because it blocks you from doing any sensitive changes to the operating system. But this can also mitigate ransomware damage as it, too, can have limited access to your operating system.
This won’t prevent the ransomware from encrypting the files you already have access to, but it can help your device to contain the attack, preventing it from spreading across other networks connected to your device.
Have Backups
No matter how good you are in protecting your files and drives, you should always be prepared for the worse.
If you ever fall for an online attack and got your drive locked, the best way to recover your data is by restoring your backup. While ransomware attackers do give a solution to decrypt your drive, in many cases, even paying the attackers won't get your files back.
This is why a good backup plan can work wonders. What you need to do, is keeping offline and separate backup of your files. You also shouldn't keep backups in share folders because some ransomware can scan networks and encrypt files in them as well, even if they're not mapped as network drives.
And if you want to keep your backup online on the clouds, make sure that you keep the credentials to access them safe. As a matter of fact, keeping backups in cloud storage solution can be a smart thing and convenient, as long as you don't map it to a local drive or folder.