BEWARE OF RANSOMWARE!

There was a very, very interesting article, yesterday (Sunday) in the “review” section of the New York Times about “ransomware”.

Can you imagine what would happen if, suddenly and without any warning, every (every!) file on your laptop or desktop got “locked”?!!!

Well, that’s what ransomware does.  It locks-down access to your files.  Then, you get a message that you have to pay a fee in order for the computer-crook who locked your files to send you a decryption key. 

Apparently, ransomeware used to attack only PC’s, but, now, MAC’s are also subject to ransomware attacks.

The best way to avoid ransomware is to make damn sure that you do not “click-on” stuff that you should not click on.

Nearly every day, I get e-mails that ask me to click on something – to “update” something or to get information about something, or etc., etc. – and I ignore and immediately delete those e-mails.  If in doubt, don’t do it, is a good rule to follow!

Even when it “looks like” the sender of the e-mail is someone you know (or a bank or insurance company, etc. that you know), that does not mean that the e-mail actually came from the “real” person or “real” company.  And, it does not mean that the person you know actually sent the e-mail to you.  (There are, I’m told, programs that grab people’s address books and then send e-mails that look like they came from them when, in fact, they have no idea that they sent you an e-mail (or that their address book got grabbed and is being used.)

Nearly every week, I get an e-mail – that says it comes from iCloud (and I’m a MAC user) - and which asks me to click on something to update my information.  I ignore and delete those e-mails.  The other day, I received an e-mail from a repro industry friend – there was no message other than “here’s some information you’ll want to know about” … and a link to click on.  It seemed fishy to me.  If in doubt, don’t do it.  So, I deleted the e-mail.  I then sent a separate e-mail to my friend to ask him about the e-mail I received from him.  Never heard back.  Someone must have grabbed his e-mail address book.

Better safe than sorry! (Thanks, mom.)

P.S. - back up your computer to an external hard-drive every day!