The Cryptolocker Virus: 3 Ways to Protect Customers
The Crytolocker Virus isn’t dead — and it’s still making its rounds. While customers may hire managed services providers (MSP) to protect them against this malicious virus, MSPs may not be their best line of defense.
If customers look in the mirror, they’ll find the best line of defense against the Cryptolocker virus staring back at them. They, in fact, are the ones who first come in contact with this malicious virus that restricts access to infected computers and demands payment before decrypting files.
Clients First CTO Mark Chinsky reviewed this particular type of malware on his company’s blog. He recommended three ways for MSPs and customers to protect themselves from the nasty virus.
Do not remove the virus
By removing the Cryptolocker virus, a customer eliminates any chance of ever decrypting the files, Chinsky said. Purposely re-infecting a machine to recover files will not work, since the encryption key will be different.
Maintain quality anti-virus and malware software
It may seem basic, but Chinsky said quality anti-virus and malware software must be properly maintained.
“In this particular case, most of the top anti-virus solutions still aren’t reliably detecting this before encryption occurs and this malware will inevitably morph again to become undetectable,” he said.
Education protects customers
Above all, educating customers on how to protect themselves from the Cryptolocker virus can go a long way. Understanding what should and should not be “clicked” can prevent intial contact with any type of malware.
Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above.
I would argue that switching
I would argue that switching on viewing file extensions (off by default on windows) gives the user (who often also need educating) a better clue as to what the file they are about to click actually is (the pdf.exe is not a pdf).
And offline backup which is never auto-connected from the machine that can be infected is also essential.
And don’t forget the patching of machines for all those web drive-by infection routes (as well as all the AV and anti malware).
All of these can be affected by the MSP.
I don’t know how you can have
I don’t know how you can have a cryptolocker article on an MSP site and not even mention the 3rd tier Cryptolocker prevention kit ( http://www.thirdtier.net/?s=crypto) or Foolish IT’s CryptoPrevent ( http://www.foolishit.com/vb6-projects/cryptoprevent/)
Harold Weiss
So where is the information
So where is the information to protect someone?
AV doesn’t work, Educate customers with what?
Do not remove the virus is the only helpful information here..
Thank you all for reading and
Thank you all for reading and providing your comment.
Anonymous, do you happen to have tips of your own? There are various sources on the Web that also point to these three tips to keep customers safe from the virus. There are plenty of customers out there who are unaware of the issue at hand.
–CJ