The “bad guys” are working hard to wreak havoc on your computer and
they are disguising their attempts in very creative ways. There are
many new email messages going around, that you may receive, with links in the
email and the wording is very convincing. The wording is designed to make you
think you should click on the link that is included in the message. DO NOT
click on any links in emails, it could be disastrous!
One of the worst threats that has hit many people here in St.
George is the Crypto Locker ransom ware. You may have heard about this
on KSL news or other places. This is a real ransom ware threat. It generally
comes in the form of an email that appears to have been sent by UPS or by the US
Postal Service telling you that you have a package and you need to click the
link to confirm your address (or a bunch of variants of a similar type message).
If you click the link, it encrypts all the data on your hard drive and on any
drive you have connected to your computer and can encrypt the data on network
drives as well. You don’t know this encryption is happening in the background.
Once it is complete, it puts a message on your screen that says you have 72
hours to pay them $300 to decrypt your files. If you do not pay the ransom
within the 72 hours, your files are lost forever. If you pay the ransom, you m!
ay or may not get your files back, but then your computer has to be wiped and
everything reinstalled to safely get rid of this problem.
Another recent email with a malicious link in it appears to come
from your IT provider and says they are migrating your email to Exchange 2013
and you have to click a link to keep your email box active. Again,
this is a scam and very dangerous to your computer. DO NOT click on any links
in emails, it could be disastrous!
These are just two examples of the hundreds of messages that are going
around right now. The best defense against this malware and ransom ware is user
education. Even up to date anti-virus and anti-malware software is not stopping
many of these threats because users click on the link and thus “allow” something
to run on their computer. We cannot stress this enough, end users have to take
responsibility for protecting their own computers and the entire computer
network.
Many people will receive emails from friends or family with links to cute
video’s or funny cartoons or whatever it may be. Do not click these links in
the email message even if they are from someone you know. The “bad guys” could
have hacked the email account of the friend or family and send out junk on their
behalf. If the cartoon or video is something that is work approved and you
“must” see it, then go directly to the web site the items is stored on and look
it up on the web site, don’t click the link. If it is not work related or work
approved, do not open it on a work computer. Sometimes the malicious item will
come in the form of an attachment rather than a link. Attachments may be
disguised to look like a spreadsheet or a word processing document or any other
seemingly harmless file. Beware of these attachments also, they can be
malicious.
If you open a malicious link from your email on a work computer and it
encrypts all your files and the network files, you could be held responsible by
your employer for the damage done. Please take this warning seriously and be
overly careful with your emails, as danger could be lurking in any message with
a link or an attachment.
