RansomwareProtect Your Data Today Before a Cybercriminal Holds Your Business at Ransom

How much money would you be willing to pay if your business files were being held hostage? Could you complete your daily operations or serve your clients without the records and applications you use every day?

If you’re not careful, you’re about to find out.

Australian companies must be wary, or they may find themselves victimised by the latest cybercriminal scheme: Ransomware – a sneaky kind of virus that infects your computers and locks down all your data, displaying only a message that demands payment sent to an anonymous account in Bitcoin in order to unlock the data and get back to work. The TorrentLocker ransomware scheme made the rounds in North America and Europe towards the end of 2014, and now it’s reared its ugly head in Australia.

Recognise the Signs

Like any malware, TorrentLocker makes its way onto your computer either through a malicious website or through email. Watch out in particular for emails like these:

  • Penal notices from the New South Wales government
  • Shipping information from the Australia post
  • Messages claiming to be from Microsoft with an important update
  • “Payroll Received” messages

What Happens?

Once you open the attachment from an email, the virus infects your computer and does two things:

  1. Locks all your files and displays a message demanding payment sent in Bitcoin in order to remove the virus and free the data. Nothing can be opened on the computer.
  2. Uses the computer’s processing power to begin “mining” Bitcoin on behalf of the cybercriminals, essentially turning your computer into a zombie worker.

How Do You Protect Yourself?

The best defence against TorrentLocker and other ransomware is a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution from Your IT Business Consultants. If your data is regularly backed up to a secure location out of your office, all you need to do when the ransom note appears is to call our team. We’ll reboot your system, restore all your data to its pristine state, and you’ll be back to work in minutes, without having to pay a cent to the kidnappers.

You need to think proactively about your I.T. security – technology is constantly evolving, and cybercrime evolves right along with it.

Your IT Business Consultants can help you plan ahead to keep up with anything the future may have in store for your technology and your business. Contact us at (07) 34950064 or [email protected] to discuss your security today.

Your Top Brisbane Information Services Consulting Company