A familiar situation:

Just before you have to leave an email arrives from Australia Post with an update of a shipment or a package awaiting pickup. You know vaguely you ordered something but can’t for the life of you remember who it’s from and what the status is. So you click on the link to ensure you will get the item soon and ……

Viruses, malware and Trojan horses

People create viruses, malware and the like for three reasons:

1. To generate income
2. To gather sensitive information (so they can get access codes or put together your identity profile and then steal your money)
3. To prove a point (either to show superiority, vulnerability or for revenge)

I never share my password with anyone

Hackers know that people are careful with passwords and have therefore found other ways to get access to your money. They either do that by loading a virus that keeps showing software you need to purchase to clean the virus. Or they keep showings ads that when you click open other ads and they generate pay per click income. Other worms capture your keyboard clicks for passwords. A more recent development is to take your data for ransom.

Every week we hear from a customer who cannot access their data due to a virus. In some cases we can remove the virus and bring back their PC to normal use but in other instances their data is lost.

I’m safe, I am using an anti-virus solution

That is great and it will either slow down your computer to a crawl, or be able to capture not more than 80-90% of the viruses. There are over 120 million different ways a virus can get to you and 28% of all Australians have been attacked by a virus in 2015

During that year Australia had the highest proportion of banking malware attacks globally (10.1% of all viruses tried to get your bank details).

Definitely make sure you have a virus checker and realise that they are not fool proof. Also they don’t help in those situations where someone rings you and very professionally gets access to your computer. And believe me, they are very convincing and use all tricks in the book to get you to divulge details.

Ok, it’s an evil world out there. What can I do to protect myself?

There is quite a bit you can do:

• Use good virus protection. We highly recommend Malwarebytes as a paid solution, However there are also some free alternatives, please feel free to contact us to know more.
• Check when people call asking for private information, Ask their name & call back number, Then search for this number on google to be sure its not a scam.
• Backup regularly – Contact us for a managed off-site encrypted backup solution that protects you against data loss.
• Call us for help if you are not sure about anything

If you have been affected by Cryptolocker or similar Ransom-ware or Malware, please contact JCR Computers on 1300 525 516 for help.