Even those who don’t follow technology news will know that there’s been a massive and destructive cyber crime that has affected over 105 countries across the globe. All with a little piece of software that can cause as much havoc as World War III would have. This time, the cyber criminals behind it are blatantly making money by crippling organisations and services by asking for money to restore things to what they were. Although ‘WannaCry’, as this ransomware has been called, has hit big organisations such as Britain’s National Health Service (actually impeding the treatment of patients), anyone could be vulnerable. The malware is delivered via a Trojan through a loaded link that can be accidentally opened by a victim through an email, ad or a Dropbox link. Once activated, the software spreads through the computer and locks all files with the same encryption used for instant messages.

This ransomware attack resulted in an understandable panic mode kicking in, in the cyber community and outside. Although our government denied a serious fallout due to the attack in India, numerous reports point to consequences such as even ATMs functioning limitedly because of the attack.

The thing to do to keep your computers and data safe is update Windows regularly, use anti-virus protection, and make absolutely certain regular backups of files are taken — say on an external drive. And then, just don't click on a link you know little about.

Very recently, a nasty scam hit one of Google’s biggest services, Google Docs. While it’s under control now, it does bring up the need to revise what it is one must or must not do whenever receiving messages and emails from others, especially unknown sources.

What scamsters do is to use a bit of ‘social engineering’ to fool you into clicking on the links they present to you. In this case, a user gets an email on Gmail from someone he or she knows with an invitation to check out a document. A message like ‘Hey, did you have a look at the notes I put in?’ That could so easily cause a user to click before even thinking, specially as one sees a trusted sender. But if you didn’t expect it and it’s out of context and you had no document exchange going on between you, just don’t click. Instead, check with the person separately. Also, take a glance at the URL and more often than not you’ll notice something that even looks suspicious.

Clicking on the link ends up granting the scamsters access to your Gmail, where you probably have tons of sensitive information, including banking related stuff. Scams may come and go, but this rule is forever. Don't just go ahead and click.

Much the same is true of requests to share and spread some messages widely, seemingly coming from major companies. If Whatsapp or Facebook wanted to reach their users, they can do so without any help so you can safely assume you’re spreading a scam.

On a positive note, this latest ransomware attack was tackled by a British software engineer who noticed a hidden web address in the malicious software’s code that was unregistered. By claiming the domain, the engineer reportedly stopped the attack in its tracks. Although we’d still advise treading with caution and keeping your data safe.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW