Malware hijacking computers around the world

[Hilander]

Leaked NSA Malware Is Helping Hijack Computers Around the World

Tens of thousands of computers, and growing, have been taken over, including hospital computers, which is causing all kinds of problems in the UK because it is leaving some hospital equipment useless. They are demanding a ransom for giving you back control.

I don't know about you but I would unhook my computer and buy another one before I would pay them a penny. I don't keep anything that important on it.

Thoughts?

 

[Mirage]

This is exactly why you should use cloud backup software. If you don't trust the cloud, then at least back up to external hard drives. It's never wise to keep all of your data in one location anyway. Hard drives crash all the time—malware aside.

 

[Impaired]

If your data only exists in one place, you have a problem. Cloud backups are great - until you have no internet access and then your data might as well not exist.

Save your files to your computer. Back them up to an external device. If this device is always attached to your computer, it is at risk.

I bought a small device called a NAS (network attached storage) that has a small 4 disk RAID array inside. I backup my files to a USB drive I have with me (in my computer bag) and another copy on the NAS.

I always have access to my files.

 

[Mirage]

I agree, @Impaired. The big reason I like Cloud storage isn't necessarily as an only backup. I agree that local hard drives are quicker to restore. But what happens if you have flooding or a fire, or some other event where your drive gets messed up.

I'd stress the importance of Cloud as an off-site backup. It's good to have your backups in more than one location. I used to keep an extra hard drive in a safety deposit box at the bank, but honestly with Internet speeds being what they are these days, Cloud backup is a great solution for off-site backup.

 

[Impaired]

The cloud is a great secondary backup place. If all your eggs are there and your computer crashes - until you get a system with Internet access, you have no files.

Internet speeds are great, but what speed does the cloud allow? Most do not allow unlimited bandwidth. We had a client using cloud backup - their server crashed - download of their data was going to take 2 weeks. Granted, this was a few terabytes of data, but still. 2 weeks to download?

We requested a hard drive shipped with the data. Cost several hundred dollars extra and still took 5 days.

I use cloud backup but I use it as a place where no matter where I go with Internet, I can access some files. I don't rely on it for restoring my lost data.

Generally speaking I have found that people don't care much about backups until they lose files.

They don't care about restore speed until they lose everything and have to restore.

Then they start doing local and cloud backups.

Then they have a fire and the local backups are destroyed. Then they do local and cloud backups and they take a local copy off site every night.

Then they are truly protected from most data loss.