Latest virus to watch out for.

Darren Wright

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
20,088
Location
Springfield, Missouri
We got an email from our IT manager today, thought you all should (as always) be diligent in making sure you are practicing good habits when it comes to reading mail, opening links, and attachments in those mails. Here is the summary of the email...

Over the past several weeks a malware called “CryptoLocker” has been spreading quickly across the internet. If infected it is probable that you will lose data.

CryptoLocker is typically spread via email as an attachment, sometimes appearing as a tracking number from UPS or Fedex but also has been seen in other forms such as PDF and .zip files.

Be extremely careful when opening any email attachments or clicking links that you are not expecting, even from someone you know. If you are unsure about anything in the email - delete the mail without opening it.

Current anti-virus/malware software will not stop this malware, once infected the files that have been encrypted cannot be cleaned.

We are aware of several local companies that have reported data loss due to this malware – this is real and we need your help to ensure we are not affected.

Additional Detail:
CryptoLocker is a particularly malicious type of ransomware that once executed will encrypt your files both locally and on network drives. Once the files are encrypted they are not accessible again until 1) you pay a ransom to receive a key to un-encrypt the files or 2) recover from a backup that is not encrypted – this will result in data loss.

This particular malware is only affecting Windows-based computers at this time but everyone should be vigilant when dealing with attachments and unknown links.

Some of the local companies have reported not only local drives being encrypted but also all network drives, dropbox data and google drive data.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker
 
Top