The New Malware - Holding Your Computer for Ransom

There was a an interesting article in the Washington Post about the rise of what is being called “ransomware”. The basics behind ransomware is pretty easy to grasp, although a harder concept to actually execute. One thing is for sure: You really need to be vigilant in helping to protect your own system.

Basically, somehow the malware is installed on your computer. Then the computer will trigger a popup that informs you that you need to send money to the cracker to release this “lock” on your computer. The program encrypts your data using 1024-bit encryption, which is extremely strong encryption.

This is definitely a new wrinkle to keep an eye on in the near future. As always, treat this as a warning to run Anti-virus software, Anti-spyware software, use safe computing techniques, and always use your head.

You can read the rest of the story at the Washington Post.

Websites you need: Shieldsup!

ShieldsUp! is a website that will scan your computer for insecure ports. Now I could get incredibly technical here, but basically here is all you need to know.

• Sometimes you computer needs some of these ports open; this is normal. What do don’t want is having ports open unnecessarily.
• Crackers can exploit these open ports to their advantage to gain access to your computer.

Visit ShieldsUp! now to check out how your computer shapes up. The directions are fantastic, but basically you want all of your ports to show up green. Not only does green mean no one else can get thru the port, it means other machines can’t even detect it. Sometimes just closing a port is just as bad as not, because it means that the cracker sees there is in fact a machine there, so it can scan other ports.

Contact me if you need any help.