Help! I’ve Been Infected with Ransomware!

Viruses can be annoying, but ransomware infections like the CryptoLocker virus are down right scary. They may appear like any other type of ransomware, but don’t be fooled. Infections like these will have lasting effects on your environment or work station. The virus itself is easily removed by your friendly neighborhood IT professionals, but the after-effects of the virus are quite severe. The virus will encrypt many of your files, and won’t give you the decryption password until you pay. Even then, it usually only decrypts a single file. Not all of your files will be encrypted/corrupted, but among files targeted will be Office documents (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc), pictures, PDFs, and certificates. The virus may not only affect your computer, it could also affect the computers that you’re attached to, making it a very malicious infection.

About Ransomware Infections

The malware finds its way into a computer through trickery. For example, email attachments with false download links or files. If you’ve received an email that looks very suspicious with an attachment, do not open it! Panic is the easiest way for hackers to get your attention. Generally, people are more likely to open emails stating your account has been charged and click here to refute it. This is the suspicious sort of email that we’re trying to avoid. If you see these types of emails, be sure to alert us.

Once the malware is removed, the only reliable way to get everything back is to restore your files from a backup. Hopefully, you maintain regular backups so the loss of data is minimal.

We recently saw this type of infection after a new client who came to us had opened an email attachment they shouldn’t have. The ransomware had encrypted the data on their computer, as well as over 5GB worth of data on the server, rendering it completely unusable. Fortunately, the client had signed up for our continuous backup protection, so the client was able to get all of their data back within an hour of the infection being removed.

How to Protect Yourself

• Use a credible, high quality anti-virus and security software, such as SentinelOne. Prevention is the best form of protection against viruses, ransomware, and malware.
• Remove admin rights for local users on your computers. By doing so, you minimize the risk of your employees installing suspicious software in the first place.
• Regularly backup your data. By having regular and frequent backups, you protect your data from being lost during infections. Contact us at OAC to discuss offsite data backup options.

If you suspect you’ve been infected with the Ransomware, or any other malware, please contact us or give us a call at (952) 548-5558. Our technicians are happy to help remove malware, and potentially recover lost data. Here is how our ransomware remediation process works.