Ransomware – One IT Company’s Unique Perspective

Editor — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 10:46:17 +0000

My name is Mike Kemp, CEO of Logix IT Services in the UK. Not so long ago, my team and I here at Logix have spent more than 300 hours tirelessly clearing up a Ransomware Cyber Attack on one of our clients networks.

The cost of this attack to the client has been huge. Without my team working through the night after the attack, the business would’ve been devastated without question.

We have been absolutely amazed how dangerous these sorts of attacks are and how unbelievably fast they spread. At the time of attack, there were no direct ways to stop these types of attacks without the diligence of the end user NOT clicking on a link or visiting a nasty website. Standard Anti Virus just can’t deal with them, especially when they are new. The Wannacry Ransomware Virus was a case in point with the Petya Ransomware Virus following hot on its heels.

One of the things that scared us the most was the high levels of expertise used in writing the Ransomware viruses and the sheer ferocity of their techniques to spread. The one we have been working on is very new and is currently on its way to being the most prevalent virus ever. It has the ability to spread from a single computer, any computer, to everything on your network.

Wannacry Ransomware. If you see this, it might be too late

This and many other viruses are available to buy on the internet. This means that anyone with a small amount of knowledge can rewrite certain parts, change the key and voila – a brand new variant is born. One that is not detectable by standard Anti Virus programs until someone gets it!

The most worrying aspect of this to us is that the infected machine looks like it wasn’t even owned by the company attacked. It looks like it could have even been a phone or tablet that was attached to one of their many networks.

The device was connected to the network out of hours and took just 34 minutes to spread through 20 servers and damage 38,000 files.

The virus uses hacking techniques to spread to servers interconnected with your network. Once a machine is infected, it spreads to other computers but also encrypts every single file it can reach. The files are unusable without a key you subsequently need to purchase from the attacker.

For more information on preventing ransomware attacks contact Logix IT Services

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Ransomware – One IT Company’s Unique Perspective