rwbradley wrote:
Excellent information, but one very important thing to remember with Backups is, for them to also not get hit by the Ransomware, it must be offline backup as most variants of the Ransomware will also hit attached network devices. If for example you have a WD My Cloud drive on your network and you setup all your computers to automatically backup across the network to it on a regular basis ie weekly, it is also vulnerable if one of your computers gets hit. A good backup plan involves two backup copies and one offline in a secure fireproof safe (or even better offsite or using a third party service like Carbonite).
With personal files, if you have a disaster like Ransomware there is a saying, "Two copies = one and one copy = none".
Encrypted ransomware targets specific file types on all accessible drives that have a letter assigned, including network and cloud based drives. Which potentially makes all affected personal files vulnerable.
Much of these problems with malware can be avoided if Windows Users would just do the one thing that the vast majority still do not, or know how to do. Even though, it's fairly easy to setup and takes just minutes. Create a separate User account when accessing the Net that does not have Admin privileges, and further limits drive access. Unfortunately, most still do the opposite.
Personally, I also use two separate drives for routine backups. One automated to backup personal files, photos, emails, and browser data, all of which are encrypted, to a separate encrypted backup drive twice a day. And a secondary external drive for system image backups, updated when any significant changes are made. Neither of these backup drives accessible from a User account.
