How To Avoid Crypto Locker Ransomware

Summary: CryptoLocker, a strain of malware that encrypts victims' files until a ransom of $100 to $300 in Bitcoins is paid, is most often spread through booby-trapped email attachments and malicious websites exploiting outdated browser plugins. The malware can take many hours to encrypt files on the PC and any attached or networked drives before displaying a pop-up with a countdown timer, and a client cited in the piece lost access to both local files and a network file server, with 2048-bit RSA keys used for encryption.
What you should know: If your backup drives are connected physically or over the local network to an infected PC, the backups get encrypted too - and cloud storage with a synced local folder can overwrite clean copies with encrypted ones, leaving payment of the $100 to $300 Bitcoin ransom as the only route back to the files.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics: Ransomware
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