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There is a particularly devious type of malicious software that locks users out of their own computer systems until an individual agrees to pay a ransom to the hackers. In these cases, the FBI has surprisingly suggested just ponying up the dough.
It's not the type of advice one would typically expected from the FBI, but that's exactly what was recommended by Joseph Bonavolonta, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's CYBER and Counterintelligence Program Boston office.
"The ransomware is that good," said Bonavolonta at the 2015 Cyber Security Summit in Boston, as quoted by Security Ledger. "To be honest, we often advise people just to pay the ransom."
Yeah, it's RT, but I did a search, and that or similar headlines popped up on dozens of news sites. I clicked a couple of them, and the stories match. Try this one,
https://thehackernews.com/2015/10/fbi-ransomware-malware.html
Personally, I can almost certainly afford to nuke and reinstall, unless they get my RAID array. Then - I'd have to think hard.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:14PM
A smart ransomware would try to change the write permission on any file you own on the drive. And they are all very, very smart.
Best thing is off-line backups. But you have to be careful even with offline backups. The last thing you want is to overwrite an offline backup with a version which is encrypted by the ransomware.
Probably offline backups with version control? Something like Apple Time Machine?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @04:06PM
Back up to non-rewriteable optical media.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @11:14PM
1. Share all your user folders on your home network such that they are read-only to a non-you user.
2. Get a raspberry pi and attach a usb drive to it.
3. Have it scan your user folders for changes.
4. Save the differences as necessary.
5. For additional safety, turn off the raspberry pi when not backing up, or set it to shutdown automatically when done.