Are you prepared for a ransomware attack?

Video Transcript:

"Welcome back for another Tech Tip. This week we're gonna talk about ransomware.
"Most people have heard of ransomware by now. Ransomware is when hackers get ahold of your files and encrypt them, and then when you try and access them you can't.
A pop-up usually comes up that says 'Hey - by the way, I just want to let you know we went ahead and encrypted your files and you can't access them. So pay us money and we'll give you a key that will unlock them.'
"More and more recently the keys do work, because they really want you to pay the ransom. That ransom is usually in the form of some amount of Bitcoin.
"It can start at $1,000 and go up to millions and millions of dollars.
"So what do we recommend?
"One, you want to make sure you have good backups. We're not talking about the little backups you run with a little hard drive that you can add to your machine - we're talking about enterprise-grade backups.
"For the newer versions of ransomware, hackers are looking for attached storage that you're backing up to, and they will attack and encrypt your backups.
"Enterprise-grade backups are ones that are actually managed off-site by a third party, so that the the virus can't see your actual data.
"You want to look at a cloud form of backup.
"The second thing is: we want to look at security to stop those ransomware payloads from actually attacking.
"Newer versions of the ransomware don't care if you pay the ransom for getting your files back. They're gonna threaten to expose them publicly, and put your data out on a website that anybody can access.
"They're trying to get you to pay the ransom whether you have good backups or not. That variant isn't as prominent yet.
"We want to make sure we have good backups and then good security in place to keep those guys out and to recognize ransomware that's running.
"Have a great week."