NSA Links WannaCry Ransomware Attack To North Korea

Interesting considering the code was developed by the NSA to penetrate computers of interest. After the worm was leaked, many bad players attempted to use it, including more than just few state entities. Just one was more successful and developed WannaCry. Keep in mind up to date computers were already patched and immune.

Is there a lesson here?
For those who can't be bothered with updates...........
Consider it a MS conspiracy to get everyone on board with Windows 10.
That way you can be the first to experience WannaCry2 by defying MS.

And I would believe news that NSA is accusing North Korea? All three entities in the article lack a certain amount of credibility.

/

What a load of C... Do you really believe that?

Ransomware relies on users not backing up their data. It is easy enough to use a cloud service these days. I also still use DVDs to save data and keep them at two different locations.

I wish I didn't have to worry about this. Now I just recommend macs for my parents, but I fear ransomware may become more and more prevalent for Apple soon.

and there is absolutely no way those 3rd party cloud services can be hacked, right?

Let's see... I'm backing up 300GB of user data (without operating systems + installed programs) once a week. So I need 36 new DVDs every week and I have to swap the media 36 times during backup. Ugh! What a waste of time and money.

I have a simpler way. 1TB external HD + SyncToy. Quickest backup, easier to keep and just as portable as DVDs.

I have a 1 Tb external drive I also use for backup.

Unplug the power and unplug the USB and it can't be hacked.

If the PC is compromised, use an emergency startup disc and format the PC's C: drive. Copy files from external drive and you are almost good to go.

You may lose some data, but it's better than losing all the data.

I've a NAS (because I have 13 TB of space on my machine.

1 - 1TB SSD for my "C" drive
4 - 4TB HDD's with more stuff on it than you'd ever want to know.

My NAS is always unplugged and powered down. When I want to back up; (which is about weekly;

01) Update my antivirus to ensure I've got the most up to date data

02) I shutdown the system (power off)

03) unhook from my ISP

04) Power up the machine;

05) Start up my antivirus and run a full; in-depth scan of my entire system. (yeah, it takes a while)

06) when it completes and all is good; I shutdown the system (power off)

07) power up my NAS and connect it to the Router

08) start up the system

09) make the data backups (only the HDD's)

10) shutdown the system

11) Power down the NAS and unhook it from the router

12) Re-connect the ISP to the router

13) power up and start up the system and abuse it.

is it overkill... maybe... but it's what I do..

You have too much time on your hands... I just run a good firewall, and don't have anything accessible from the Internet through it except a couple of virtual machines that if they get hacked, who cares? VMWare is a most wonderful product. I use a third party program (CrashPlan) to back up all my systems (virtuals as well) to my server, then monthly copy those backup files off to the NAS (16 TB), just in case. The NAS is Linux based, so I'm not so worried about the hackability, and there are no mapped drives or shares.

I just cant afford to loose this stuff..

So I'm just really careful...

Step 0 - "put on tinfoil hat"

those 13 steps are useless if they get in thru your head.

Always good to have multiple backups, even without ransomware threat.

.