Crypto locker and other ransomware has been in the news a bit more than normal lately and that’s a good thing. I’m not sure what took so long for it to get into the news. I first ran into this 3 or 4 years ago and the only good solution then was the same one we have now. Backup. The ransomware folks have no power against good backup plans.
What makes a good backup plan? One of the most important things is the backup has to be automatic. This may seem obvious, but many people still rely on actions like manually backing up files to thumb drives or other similar activities. Backups which rely on human actions are subject to one of the weakest links – the human factor.
Another key part of a backup plan is having multiple copies of files. With encryption based ransomware the software may have been running for a while encrypting files in the background until the process was complete. At that point it might be necessary to go back a couple of versions to find unencrypted versions of the files.
The final key is having the multiple versions in multiple locations or at the very least on multiple types of media. The reason for this should be obvious. If one location has been attacked or damaged then the alternate location will be able to provide the files. A friend of mine learned this the hard way when her automated backup system suffered a catastrophic failure. Simply put, the hard drive in her external drive failed. Also physical isolation takes away the worry of file recovery in the aftermath of a local event such as a fire. All too many backups are made to devices just a few feet away from the system they are protecting.
The good news is that cloud services make this all quite simple. It takes little effort to arrange for a solid backup system with file versioning. Many of them also offer a local backup option ensuring one more copy of the file exists. They come in many flavors. Some are as basic as OneDrive, Box or Dropbox which simply keep files synchronized between multiple computers and a central server. These systems makes accessing or sharing files quick and easy. Other systems such as Carbonite are more backup focused. Carbonite does not offer the same level of files sharing, but it provides multifaceted backup options which are rock-solid. It can either be set up to simply backup all data to their servers or it can be set up with a local image option combined with on line storage of files. This makes it possible to recover the data files, and it makes it possible to restore the system image as well. That means there is no need to reinstall the operating system and the programs.
No matter what system you use the most important choice you can make is to backup. The worst choice is to not backup at all, but keep in mind that a bad backup system may be only slightly better than none at all.
Here are the links for the providers mentioned above:
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