There are quite a lot of things that need to be taken into account when it comes to this particular type of attack because ransomware is particularly different than both viruses and malware. This is due to the progress that hackers have been making recently in an attempt to overcome the securities provided by antivirus dealers in order to continue their obviously lucrative activity. However, one thing that you might take into account is that you should never, under any circumstances pay the required amount. You aren’t getting your information back – that’s one thing that you need to know. Instead, it’s better to spend this money on professionals who might as well have the right solution.
The Differences
Unlike classic malware scripts or viruses like Trojans and keyloggers, ransomware is something that won’t rely on the off-chance of somewhere typing his billing information and picking it up. Instead, the hackers are posing a direct and simple ultimatum – either you pay the money or you get everything you hold valuable in terms of documents deleted and never to be seen again. Malware isn’t going to destroy your files, it’s there to spam and to pick up essential information while ransomware aims to do just that – devastate your valuable information and get money off of you.
How to Defend Yourself
Of course, the first thing to do is to have a viable, fully active and reliable anti-virus system as they are making considerable strides towards busting malicious software of the kind. Furthermore, you should also back-up everything that you have. You can use an external hard drive or a cloud but make sure to have backups. This way, even when the ransomware gets your files deleted, you will be able to restore them conveniently.
Now, you can already understand how terribly harmful this particular threat can be. In a matter of moments, you can get your entire system locked up and, unfortunately, all that information is going to be locked up. If you think that paying the ransom is going to help you out – you are mistaken. However, you should also keep in mind that the majority of the ransomware attacks are incentivized by lack of email protection. Most of the times, the contaminated file is attached to an image in a spam email or something of the kind. This is why if you had a temporary mail box this could have helped you out because you wouldn’t have opened the spam letter.
A temporary email address can act as an independent and comprehensive filtration for your original email so you don’t open any suspicious or shady letters.
As you can see, there are quite a lot of things that you would have to take into account when it comes to cyber security. As we rely more and more on computers and internet, hackers are going to take advantage of it to the best of their abilities.