Protect yourself against Wannacry ransomware

Here are some basic yet essential tips to protect yourself against ransomware such as Wannacry. I’m sure it won’t be the last piece of ‘ransom’ malware to be released.

Wannacry was a nasty piece of malware that surfaced a few weeks ago, and was covered extensively by the media due to the problems it created for regular windows users. The ransomware had infected over 10 000 organizations and 200 000 individuals over 150 countries so it was quite widespread.

A researcher accidentally stopped the spread of the ransomware by registering a domain that served as a kill switch for the malicious code (a very interesting read if you have time).

When infected, your computer would display the message below, which effectively hold your computer at ransom until you paid an amount (in Bitcoin). You would then supposedly be provided with a key to ‘unlock’ your computer and have access to your files again. There was much discussion as to whether the key was actually provided after payment.

 

Wannacry_screenshot

As always, prevention is always better than a cure. Below I’ve listed some of the best tips to help protect you against such nasties. Whilst these tips are not a 100% guarantee, they WILL greatly reduce the likelihood of an infection such as Wannacry and other malware.

 

  1. Make sure your computer has installed all important and security updates. For Wannacry, see here for the Microsoft security update, OR download directly from the Microsoft update catalog.
  2. Check that your antivirus (AV) definitions are up to date. AV software is pretty much useless if not kept up to date.
  3. In addition to at AV software, install a good anti-malware program such as MalwareBytes .  There is a free version available but for a small annual fee, the premium version is well worth it!
  4. Always keep at least one backup of your critical files such as documents and photos. This step deserves a post by itself, but I cannot stress how important backups are. I personally use Crashplan but at the very least copy your critical files regularly to an external hard drive.

For further detail and guidance, check out this article from Microsoft Technet.

Or leave a message below. Did you get affected? How did you get your computer back to normal?

 

 

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