Posted on May 15, 2017
Global cyberattack: A super-simple explanation of what happened
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I'm doing my good deed for the day. Folks, ransomware is a threat, and unfortunately one that once you are affected by it, it's too late. Unless you have a lab setup with capabilities to reverse engineer the virus, you're not going to be able to tear it out of your system without drastic steps.
What can you do? Like they say, download the patches. Microsoft released a patch for this back in March. If you haven't checked to make sure you have the latest security patches, do it. Right now. Don't even finish reading this.
Second thing: partitioning your drives correctly. Alright, I'm going to get a little techie right now. But this tip's an important one for anyone that uses a computer daily. You want to run your operating system on a boot-specific partition, and store all your programs and data on other partitions. "But Ryan, what's a boot-specific partition?" It's a drive that is set up to only hold your OS. It can be an entire physical drive, or you can set up a smaller partition and create a logical drive. Typically, you want about 300-500GB, to allow for programs you have to run from your OS partition (trust me when I say, some programs don't work right if they aren't on the same drive as Windows). Why is this important? If push comes to shove, you can wipe your boot partition and reload your OS fresh, and not lose much of your data since it's stored elsewhere on the machine. And this is just Computering 101, because sometimes, things just happen. If you want to learn how to do this, just look up drive partitioning for your particular flavor of operating system. There are literally hundreds of thousands of webpages dedicated to the topic.
Edit - Side Note: If you are repartitioning a drive already being used, you will lose all the data on that drive. Do NOT repartition any in-use hard drive without backing up everything you can't or don't want to lose.
Third, if you fall victim to a cyber attack like this, or otherwise believe that your computer has been compromised, isolate it. Take it off the network. Unplug the Ethernet, hit the Wi-Fi button, whatever you need to do. DO NOT TURN IT OFF. You could do more harm by powering it down or initiating a restart. You definitely won't do any good. Just get it off your network so whatever compromised your system doesn't spread.
Lastly, never engage these people. If you suspect that you are the victim of a cyber attack, and your computer or email gives you an 800-type number to call to rectify the situation, don't. Do not engage them in any fashion. Because what are you probably calling them from? A smart phone. What are they good at compromising? Computer systems. What's a smart phone? A tiny computer. By calling, you may be setting yourself up for further compromise. Take it to Trendy Blue Shirt Squad before you ever call any number your compromised system gives you.
What can you do? Like they say, download the patches. Microsoft released a patch for this back in March. If you haven't checked to make sure you have the latest security patches, do it. Right now. Don't even finish reading this.
Second thing: partitioning your drives correctly. Alright, I'm going to get a little techie right now. But this tip's an important one for anyone that uses a computer daily. You want to run your operating system on a boot-specific partition, and store all your programs and data on other partitions. "But Ryan, what's a boot-specific partition?" It's a drive that is set up to only hold your OS. It can be an entire physical drive, or you can set up a smaller partition and create a logical drive. Typically, you want about 300-500GB, to allow for programs you have to run from your OS partition (trust me when I say, some programs don't work right if they aren't on the same drive as Windows). Why is this important? If push comes to shove, you can wipe your boot partition and reload your OS fresh, and not lose much of your data since it's stored elsewhere on the machine. And this is just Computering 101, because sometimes, things just happen. If you want to learn how to do this, just look up drive partitioning for your particular flavor of operating system. There are literally hundreds of thousands of webpages dedicated to the topic.
Edit - Side Note: If you are repartitioning a drive already being used, you will lose all the data on that drive. Do NOT repartition any in-use hard drive without backing up everything you can't or don't want to lose.
Third, if you fall victim to a cyber attack like this, or otherwise believe that your computer has been compromised, isolate it. Take it off the network. Unplug the Ethernet, hit the Wi-Fi button, whatever you need to do. DO NOT TURN IT OFF. You could do more harm by powering it down or initiating a restart. You definitely won't do any good. Just get it off your network so whatever compromised your system doesn't spread.
Lastly, never engage these people. If you suspect that you are the victim of a cyber attack, and your computer or email gives you an 800-type number to call to rectify the situation, don't. Do not engage them in any fashion. Because what are you probably calling them from? A smart phone. What are they good at compromising? Computer systems. What's a smart phone? A tiny computer. By calling, you may be setting yourself up for further compromise. Take it to Trendy Blue Shirt Squad before you ever call any number your compromised system gives you.
Global cyberattack: A super-simple explanation of what happened
Posted from money.cnn.com
Cyber
Crime
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
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Well RP Im back from Vacation, and the first thing I did was send the Below Email to my Command as the Cyber Security Manager, about this. Please feel free to use it / alter as needed to let your troops know what's up and how to avoid it. I send this format out to keep them engaged and I find Humor to be the best tool to keep their interest. It also works for my Safety Manger Emails and my DAPA Manager Emails.
Alcon
Good Morning NSA, well it's been an interesting weekend in the Cyber world,
hasn't it?.... First the boring bits,
"Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and
restricts users' access to it until a ransom is paid to unlock it. The malware
spreads by "phishing," luring unsuspecting users to click on infected email
attachments and links in emails to launch the attack. Unpatched or out-of-date
systems are particularly vulnerable to ransomware." Below you will find some
helpful tips to avoid this or at least mitigate the issues.
1: First, for all you happy clickers that never read and just click click,
click away, (((DO NOT CLICK!!!!!))) on links or download files in emails
unless you know, A. Who it is from, B. That they sent it for sure for you to
download. C. That they are not compromised. We all know Uncle Bob loves to
send you those funny links of the cute cat doing the silly human thing with
its paws, What you don't know is Uncle Bob's computer is infected and is now a
Zombie, using his Email and address list to send out infected emails in the
hopes that you will CLICK on the link and... ooops your now a Zombie tooo.
(Brainsss...)
2: Ensure your personal devices are updated and patched. I know this can seem
to be daunting at times but thankfully Windows will do it automatically once
you turn on that feature. If you need directions on how to do this Contact
your nearest IT or Google it.
3: But IT1 I want to click on all of Uncle Bob's cute cat photo links and I
don't want to do any updates what should I do? Well my Happy Clicker friend
(besides keeping me in business) Backup your data so you can recover your
systems if they become infected. The Simplest way to do that is get a Large
External drive and run the built in Window Back up Program, or just copy all
of your important stuff to the drive manually.
4: Make sure to have a good Anti-Virus program. Mcafee, Norton, and F-Secure,
are three of the leading ones on the market, two of them you can download for
free from a .mil system.
Follow these four steps, Protect your data, Photos, and Documents, it's in
your hands to stay safe in the Cyber world, and it's a very Big World.
Alcon
Good Morning NSA, well it's been an interesting weekend in the Cyber world,
hasn't it?.... First the boring bits,
"Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and
restricts users' access to it until a ransom is paid to unlock it. The malware
spreads by "phishing," luring unsuspecting users to click on infected email
attachments and links in emails to launch the attack. Unpatched or out-of-date
systems are particularly vulnerable to ransomware." Below you will find some
helpful tips to avoid this or at least mitigate the issues.
1: First, for all you happy clickers that never read and just click click,
click away, (((DO NOT CLICK!!!!!))) on links or download files in emails
unless you know, A. Who it is from, B. That they sent it for sure for you to
download. C. That they are not compromised. We all know Uncle Bob loves to
send you those funny links of the cute cat doing the silly human thing with
its paws, What you don't know is Uncle Bob's computer is infected and is now a
Zombie, using his Email and address list to send out infected emails in the
hopes that you will CLICK on the link and... ooops your now a Zombie tooo.
(Brainsss...)
2: Ensure your personal devices are updated and patched. I know this can seem
to be daunting at times but thankfully Windows will do it automatically once
you turn on that feature. If you need directions on how to do this Contact
your nearest IT or Google it.
3: But IT1 I want to click on all of Uncle Bob's cute cat photo links and I
don't want to do any updates what should I do? Well my Happy Clicker friend
(besides keeping me in business) Backup your data so you can recover your
systems if they become infected. The Simplest way to do that is get a Large
External drive and run the built in Window Back up Program, or just copy all
of your important stuff to the drive manually.
4: Make sure to have a good Anti-Virus program. Mcafee, Norton, and F-Secure,
are three of the leading ones on the market, two of them you can download for
free from a .mil system.
Follow these four steps, Protect your data, Photos, and Documents, it's in
your hands to stay safe in the Cyber world, and it's a very Big World.
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CPO (Join to see)
SSgt Ryan Sylvester - LOL Well I do need to stay in Business. I use F-Secure on all of personal systems, but I cant point people at one as it would seem to be advocating. Also they can get those two for free and that's a step up from nothing lol.
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CPO (Join to see)
MCPO Roger Collins - Had a friend that did a bench test on F-Secure. Long story short even booting into safe mode and placing a nasty virus in the boot up then rebooting didn't work. F-secure crushed it.... But all that aside the programs only work if the people don't click the 'Ya I really really want to install that random program I know nothing about that my antiviruses says is bad because I refuse to read the bloody pop up alert box and am just going to keep clicking OK!!!!" annnnnd now your infected.
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MCPO Roger Collins
Never heard of it. I'll check it out. I treat emails like I do phone calls, if I don't know you, I don't talk to you.
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SSgt Ryan Sylvester
As far as we know, it's only the information on the compromised system. It's possible that the virus could affect connected storage areas that the user has elevated privileges for (like a network drive), but I don't think that a Cloud storage would be affected in the same way. I'll check into it and get back with you if I find anything concrete either way.
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Another piece of advice..use a Mac..while not completely virus free the majority of viruses are designed for Windows..
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SSgt Ryan Sylvester
It's an option. However, I always answer that argument with this one: if you're going to switch to Mac because of viruses, just go the whole mile and switch to Ubuntu. Even less viruses, and you can run it on anything.
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