Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Fein-Lines: Virus, Phishing, Ransomware…Oh My!

It really is a shame that we must go through this but it is also a shame that we have to lock our doors, have an alarm system, and do all the things that are necessary to protect our family and belongings. It is just the world we live in.

If you did not protect yourself and you became infected and you do not have a back-up, then the last two options come into play and neither of them are good.

Option 3: If you do not have a non-infected back-up, reformat everything and start over, regretfully losing all your data.

The only thing good about this is that it is easy. You reformat your drive, reinstall you operating system and then your programs and apps and you basically have a new computer. You can of course also just buy a new computer.

And then, there is Option 4. You can go figure out how to buy bitcoin or you can mine for it for a few months and pay the ransom and take a chance that they will in fact release your files—quite often they do not—and you can also live with knowing that somewhere in your computer that ransomware still may exist just waiting to be reactivated.

For this article, we have focused on ransomware as it is the hot topic but there are other forms of malware out there. Some of scariest ones include new versions of Rootkit malware, persistent malware (advanced persistent threat malware), and firmware-based malware, in addition to the seemingly more pedestrian viruses and hacks. 

We will be publishing a series of articles regarding computer maintenance and security in the coming months and we will cover some of these other threats as well as provide an update on ransomware. As I often say, stay tuned.

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