The Malware Menace

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Malware, the modern IT plague

Software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.

Oxford Dictionary

Malware is malicious, it’s never a good thing for a computer system.  It usually finds its way in to a device/system via a vulnerability in a piece of software; Usually via one of these common methods:

  • “Phishing” – Emails with suspicious links or attachments
  • Un-patched systems with known software vulnerabilities
  • Through social engineering, someone rings and says they are from BT or Amazon and asks you to install some software so they can fix a problem with your account or PC
  • Free software downloads from un-trusted sites
  • Other infected files you may be sent via email, USB memory stick  etc.

Malware can do a number of things to your system but you can rest assured none of them are good.  You probably won’t notice to start with that malware has found its way on to your system, but it will be there watching your every move and taking note of every click and key press you make.

The three most common things that malware do are:

  • Steal your sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card / online banking information.
  • Carry out DDoS (Distributed denial of service attacks) where lots of traffic is sent from 1000s of machines with malware on them to a website/service causing it to fail and denying service to genuine users.
  • Destroying your data and making your system unusable, possibly with a demand for payment to recover it safely.

Ransomware – Pay up, or the data gets it!

A picture of a laptop with its data encrypted, the owner is passing a large amount of money to the hacker in exchange for a key to get the data back

Ransomware is a special class of malware and once it manages to to sneak its way onto your system it gets straight to work encrypting your data. 

The encryption process might only take a few hours, and as a result your data will no longer be accessible to you. Meanwhile you will be presented with a “ransom note” on screen, with instructions of how and where to pay to get your data back, this is where the term ransomware comes from.

A typical ransom can range anywhere from a few hundred pounds to many thousands, it all depends on what they think they can extort from you and in the last two months alone this has led to several high profile ransomware attacks:

We could unfortunately have added many more names to that list. If you chose to pay the ransom it isn’t always a guarantee of getting your data back either, sometimes due to bugs in the ransomware or just because they never had any intention of giving you access. Sometimes they will even release the data they stole.

Good news, you can protect yourself

There are several things you can do to reduce the chances that you’ll suffer a malware attack, all of them simple:

  1. Always keep your system and its software updated, ransomware exploits un-patched bugs to get in. We can help you with this with our Cyber Protect service that includes:
    • online backups
    • ransomware, malware and virus protection
    • software patch management
    • centralised monitoring, management and reporting
  1. Make sure you have some form of virus and malware protection.  We include this with our Cyber Protect service.
  1. Never open files you are not expecting in your email and don’t run files downloaded from random websites or memory sticks.
  1. Don’t click on links you are unsure of.
  1. Never allow a 3rd party to take control of your computer unless you know who they are and you have called them for assistance.
  1. Most importantly, you should always have a backup that is not connected to your system.  A good example is our Backoops Cyber Backup, which backs-up your data to one of our secure cloud storage locations, which as an added bonus provides ransomware protection built in.  If you can access a backup of your data, then you won’t need to ever pay to get it back should the worst happen.

If you’d like more information on how Backoops can help protect your business then please get in touch and one of our specialists will be happy to talk to you, with no obligation. Alternatively if you’d like to dive right in then you can signup for our 30-day free trial.