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Ransomware

Ransomware
Ransomware has been in the news lately over the past few years. It has been featured in some of my favourite tv show dramas like The Blacklist and more.

What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a virus attack of a computer system in which files are encrypted and a ransom demand is displayed. Business houses are the most frequented targets for this viral attack.

The simplest form of this attack is just renaming the file extensions and displaying a ransom message for it to be renamed back. The most sophisticated would be locking down the filesystem with encryption and displaying an error message.

The most popular ransomware of recent was WannaCry. The exploit was allegedly leaked from the United States National Security Agency. More information about WannaCry can be found here

The best defences against ransomware are:

  1. User awareness. Informed users decrease the attack surface with which systems can be attacked.
  2. File System defences. Volume Shadow Copy and ZFS are the two most common ways of securing data against ransomware attacks. Versioning in OneDrive and Google Drive may also offer some protection important files.
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