Our devices can be compromised by a wide variety of threats. Some may seek to steal passwords or personal data, others may cause the system to malfunction and sometimes even ask for a bailout, As the ransomware. This last case, in fact, is the one that is gaining weight in recent times. Why is this happening? We are going to talk about this in this article. We will also give advice to be protected at all times.
Economic bailouts grow with cyber attacks
A hacker in most cases is going to seek a profit. May steal data to sell them to third parties, but you could also lock the files and ask for money to release them. This is what is known as a ransomware attack and it is undoubtedly one of the most problematic that affects both companies and home users.
According to Picus Security’s latest cybersecurity report, cybercriminals are increasingly focusing on ransomware attacks. They put aside other attacks such as Phishing, to ask for a financial ransom and thus profit by infecting the victim’s systems.
This same report indicates that malware variants they are becoming more sophisticated and evasive. They modify them in such a way that it is more difficult for antivirus to detect them. If, in addition to infecting a computer, they manage to paralyze its operation, they have an advantage to profit.
But, why are these types of attacks growing right now? One of the reasons is that more and more users are working through the network. Therefore, they need the computers to function properly, they store a large number of files that they cannot lose. Many of which can even compromise business computers, even though they are stored on a personal computer.
How to protect yourself from ransomware-type attacks
What can we do to be protected from attacks where they can ask for a ransom in exchange for enabling the files? It is important to take into account a series of tips that we are going to give. This will help us to improve our defense against ransomware, but also against any other type of malware.
The most important thing is the common sense. We must avoid making mistakes, such as downloading a file that could be dangerous or opening a link that we received by email and we do not really know where it came from.
It is also essential to always have security programs. A good antivirus can prevent the entry of threats that put our system at risk. For example Windows Defender, Avast or Bitdefender are some of the most popular. Of course, they must be correctly updated to detect threats well.
On the other hand, having the updated systems it will also help enhance security. In fact, many of these threats will take advantage of vulnerabilities that may exist. They will exploit security flaws and thus steal information or, as in the case of ransomware, encrypt files to demand a ransom in return.
Ultimately, it is important to avoid errors that can bring ransomware. Computer attacks to ask for a ransom in return are more and more frequent and we must preserve our data at all times.
