By now you must have heard of 'WannaCry' ransomware. The impact is massive where it attacked on 150 countries and around 200,000 users worldwide. I felt it necessary to provide the information and how to prevent such attacks in future.
Ransomware is the word that indicates to ransom. In a nut shell the intention is to make the user pay to get back the files. WannaCray can come into your system through email attachments and Microsoft SMB feature that is used for file sharing. It encrypts the file located on your desktop and all the drives. So file will have unknown icon with strange extension. After it locks files successful, leaves a message that to make the payment to get back their files.
If you have backup of all files formatting the system is good option. But users who are not very much used to computers tend to fell for it. I would want to make the awareness among them to follow precautions to protect their system from such incidents in future.
1. Update Windows OS with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 from here.
2. Update Anti Virus.
3. Uninstall SMBv1 if not require.
4. Never Open unknown email attachment and mark such emails as junk or fishing.
5. Never click on unknown link, it may have executable which will run in the background.
Other preventive measures
1. Download software from vendor's website. For ex. if you want to download a Microsoft software it is recommended to get it from Microsoft sites.
2. Scan the system whenever any suspicious act observed.
3. Scan the USB drives before accessing them.
4. Prefer firewall enabled router and do not turn off windows firewall.
The incidents specifically happened with those OS which are no more supported by Microsoft like XP, Vista.
Ransomware is the word that indicates to ransom. In a nut shell the intention is to make the user pay to get back the files. WannaCray can come into your system through email attachments and Microsoft SMB feature that is used for file sharing. It encrypts the file located on your desktop and all the drives. So file will have unknown icon with strange extension. After it locks files successful, leaves a message that to make the payment to get back their files.
If you have backup of all files formatting the system is good option. But users who are not very much used to computers tend to fell for it. I would want to make the awareness among them to follow precautions to protect their system from such incidents in future.
1. Update Windows OS with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 from here.
2. Update Anti Virus.
3. Uninstall SMBv1 if not require.
4. Never Open unknown email attachment and mark such emails as junk or fishing.
5. Never click on unknown link, it may have executable which will run in the background.
Other preventive measures
1. Download software from vendor's website. For ex. if you want to download a Microsoft software it is recommended to get it from Microsoft sites.
2. Scan the system whenever any suspicious act observed.
3. Scan the USB drives before accessing them.
4. Prefer firewall enabled router and do not turn off windows firewall.
The incidents specifically happened with those OS which are no more supported by Microsoft like XP, Vista.
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