{"id":4716,"date":"2016-05-18T10:05:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T15:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2017-07-06T08:28:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T13:28:29","slug":"cryptolocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/cryptolocker\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Cryptolocker Ransomware?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cryptolocker-malware-laptop.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-4719 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cryptolocker-malware-laptop-300x246.png\" alt=\"cryptolocker-malware-laptop\" width=\"300\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cryptolocker-malware-laptop-300x246.png 300w, https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/cryptolocker-malware-laptop.png 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>Cryptolocker is a well known malware (software that does harm) of a particular variety: ransomware. \u00a0Some malware (like computer viruses) delete and destroy. \u00a0The hackers that create ransomware have other motivations: money.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Ransomware<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Ransomware does something to your computer, and then demands a ransom payment to get your computer back to the way it used to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">How does\u00a0a\u00a0computer get infected?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Because ransomware is software, it has to be downloaded to your computer and run there. \u00a0Often it gets packed with free software such as free games (evil hackers have no problem writing a game if it helps them install ransomware on your computer). \u00a0It can also get automatically downloaded if your web browser has a security vulnerability and you visit a web page with special code to attack that vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">To keep yourself safe:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Don\u2019t download free software from companies you\u2019ve never heard of.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Be very careful when visiting a website you\u2019ve never heard of. \u00a0Some of the most dangerous are those that advertise free software or movies that normally have to be paid for.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Use a good anti-virus program<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Make sure your operating system (Windows) is set to automatically install updates so it can protect itself from problems that get found later.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Use a good Internet Browser. \u00a0Do not use Internet Explorer versions older than version 11.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">What does it do?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Ransomware can do many things. \u00a0The most popular attack is\u00a0to encrypt your documents, pictures, spreadsheets, and other files. \u00a0Once the files are encrypted, you can\u2019t use them or view them \u2014 they are basically locked, which is where the term Cryptolocker comes from. \u00a0A message is shown that demands you send money electronically for the decryption key. \u00a0If you pay, the decryption key will unlock your files and you\u2019ll be able to use them again. \u00a0The ransom can be a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Who gets attacked?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Pretty much everyone is vulnerable to this attack. \u00a0Businesses that have networks are in particular danger because once a single computer is infected on the network, that computer will begin to encrypt any other files that it can get to on the network. \u00a0There have been some cases of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2016\/02\/hack-brief-hackers-are-holding-an-la-hospitals-computers-hostage\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">hospitals<img class=\"extlink-icon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/external-links-nofollow-open-in-new-tab-favicon\/images\/extlink.png\"><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.networkworld.com\/article\/2901527\/microsoft-subnet\/crypto-ransomware-attack-hit-new-jersey-school-district-locked-up-entire-network.html\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">school districts<img class=\"extlink-icon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/external-links-nofollow-open-in-new-tab-favicon\/images\/extlink.png\"><\/a>\u00a0and many businesses\u00a0getting hit by this.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">How do businesses protect themselves?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Training users to be safe using the list above is the first step. \u00a0But despite best efforts, sooner or later, someone will slip and make a mistake. \u00a0Training requires everyone to act correctly 100% of the time. \u00a0The hackers only need a person to make a mistake once.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">More and more businesses are turning to software to help protect them. \u00a0 Software can watch for the encrypting activities and quickly alert IT staff of the attack. \u00a0Once IT knows, they can turn off or disconnect the infected computer to protect the rest of the files on the network. \u00a0To be able to do that, software needs to be able to report which computer on the network is attacking a server. \u00a0That\u2019s why businesses are turning to PA File Sight \u2014 it can tell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/products\/file-sight\/?ref=blog\">you what user\u00a0is accessing files<\/a>, and what computer they\u2019re doing it from.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Simple Solution<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">We have a few other blog articles about how our customers are using PA File Sight to protect themselves. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/category\/cryptolocker\/\">We invite you to take a look \ud83d\ude42<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cryptolocker is a well known malware (software that does harm) of a particular variety: ransomware. \u00a0Some malware (like computer viruses) delete and destroy. \u00a0The hackers that create ransomware have other motivations: money. Ransomware Ransomware does something to your computer, and then demands a ransom payment to get your computer back to the way it used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptolocker","category-pc-security","category-windows"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5154,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/5154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poweradmin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}