Page 106 - Cyber Warnings August 2017

according to The Independent, which has been forced to fall back on older technologies for
radiation monitoring.

This is a promise that I want you to make to yourself – that you will take the threat of
ransomware seriously and do something about it before it hits your data. I’ve seen too many
cries for help and too many people confused and panicking when their files get encrypted. How I
wish I could say that ransomware protection is not a life and death kind of situation! But if you
work in a hospital and you trigger a crypto-ransomware infection, it could actually endanger
lives. Learning how to prevent ransomware attacks is a need-to-have set of knowledge and you
can do it both at home and at work. So here are the things that would surely help you prevent
ransomware:

Locally

1. Don’t store important data only on your PC.
2. Have two backups of your data: on an external hard drive and in the cloud –
Dropbox/Google Drive/etc.
3. The Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive/etc. application on your computer is not turned on
by default. Open them once a day only, to sync your data, and close them once this is
done.
4. Your operating system and the software you use must be up to date, including the latest
security updates.
5. For daily use, don’t use an administrator account on your computer. Use a guest
account with limited privileges.
6. You must turn off macros in the Microsoft Office suite – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
7. In the browser
8. You must remove the following plugins from your browsers: Adobe Flash, Adobe
Reader, Java and Silverlight. If you absolutely have to use them, set the browser to ask
you if you want to activate these plugins when needed.
9. Adjust your browser’s security and privacy settings for increased protection.
10. Remove outdated plugins and add-ons from your browsers. Keep the ones you use on a
daily basis and keep them updated to the latest version.
11. Use an ad-blocker to avoid the threat of potentially malicious ads.

Online

1. Never open spam emails or emails from unknown senders.
2. Never download attachments from spam emails or suspicious emails.
3. Never click links in spam emails or suspicious emails.

106 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – August 2017 Edition
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