Ransomware Targets Continue to Pay Hackers

I've got all the usual bells and whistles. Avira for the virus protection, HIPS, administrative account is different from my standard use account, and no automatic updates. I also have one more new whistle.

I recently picked up a 500GB SSD drive to replace my HDD boot drive, which came with mirroring software to make a bit-for-bit copy of my old drive to my new drive. Instead of reusing my old drive in the system, though, I keep it disconnected inside the computer and update it with recent major changes to my system or software (I'll do the same with my storage drive when I get a 1TB SSD to replace that one). If my boot drive gets compromised with ransomware or such, I can just wipe and reimage it. I may lose some files, but better that than paying out a few thousand dollars to some hacker and trusting them to give me the unlock code.

Oh, and by the by, Windows Defender works better than Norton and McAfee. At least it's integrated into the system and doesn't hog resources. Has about the same detection rate, too (which is to say, barely detects anything).

Smart move!