FBI: "Ransomware is raking in the dough!"

   Those who have been hit with ransonmware know how much of a pain it is to deal with, especially in the business environment.  Someone clicks on an unsuspecting link in an email, or an online ad... and bam!!!  All the files are locked down and you've gotta pay to get them back.  To us IT pros, it's a major inconvenience.  We gotta find out who got the infection (check the security tab in properties of infected files, the account that took ownership is patience zero), remove them from the network, disconnect everyone from the network shares or servers and start running restores from our backups.

   Depending on how quickly the restores can, you're talking between a couple of hours to a couple of days to restored all the locked files.  That's if you have good backups (you test them regularly, don't ya?), and no further complications.  Some companies have to pay the ransom or get hire a specialized team to restore the files because they aren't backup or their backups are encrypted too (not good if infection hits before the weekend).

It's costing us a pretty penny to deal
with... or about $18 million.

   What does the FBI have to say about this scourge?  That it's costing us a pretty penny to deal with... or about $18 million.  Who says crime doesn't pay?  Working in a financial institution, I know that this is our largest threat.  Criminals are going after the employees instead of the servers, because they know us IT pros are usually good at locking things down, and that employees don't always listen to us when it comes to not clicking on all the things!!!  It wasn't fun last year having to deal with two Crytolocker infections, two months apart. XD

   How many of you have had to deal with a ransomware infection?  Was it easy for you to get the company back up and running, or did you have to pay the ransom?

And as always, stay safe goblins.

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About Jimmy R. Tassin

Jimmy Tassin is the IT Manager of Midwest Regional Bank and has been involved with the Technology field for over thirteen years. His two hobbies are overseeing the daily operations of OmniKraft, a Minecraft server community, and writing at Goblinbyte.com.