Today, security firms have warned about a sudden huge surge in junk mail messages containing Ransomware, in particular a strain called Locky, produced only two weeks ago and is now the second most prevalent form. Currently, Locky asks for 3 bitcoins (£885) as payment for the decryption key.
Experts have warned that, to avoid falling victim, people and companies should regularly back up data so it can be restored if a machine gets infected.
“The only reliable defence against Ransomware, is backup,” says Nigel Tozer, Solutions Marketing Director, Commvault. “Organised
crime gangs will forever be one step ahead of threat detection software, so if your data is held to ransom the only true means of recovery is to be able to revert back to data from the last backup before the infection. When files are encrypted and corrupted
by a ransomware attack, cloud sync and share tools aren’t something you can rely on either, because the sync facility means cloud files are as infected as their originals. The other issue is that these cloud services, especially free or those targeted at consumers,
typically don’t cover all of your data and may not always have retention policies that pre-date the attack. The best option, to insure against data-mincing malware, is an in-house centrally managed backup solution. Whilst reverting to the backup prior to the
infection might mean losing a few weeks worth of data, it is nominal compared to the impact of losing all your data permanently."