Ransomware At Christmas? Santa Helps the Bad Guys!

Technology Technology: In The News
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Just in time for Christmas, Kronos payroll and HR cloud software goes offline due to ransomware - TechRepublic

The thieves are having a great Christmas!

I always worry about using the “Cloud”!

A “Cloud” is the modern name for a massive Storage Centre, of which there are now many, out there, in the world.

It’s a place where you can store all of your Computer data, off your machine, and get it back as and when you need it.

It might well be free of charge, up to a certain level and then charges start to kick in later.

All fine & dandy, and well used until you read something like the attached article.

Then you ask yourself, am I better using my spare hard drive, etc, and keeping my bank stuff close?

Again, as we read the article, although it may not apply, exactly, to us light users, we can see how attractive it may be to scammers.

On my PCs, I first met the cloud stuff, for real, as my PC changed my Onedrive to “personal” and put it on Cloud.

I’m, now, moving it back.

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Wouldn’t touch ‘the cloud’ with a ten foot barge pole!

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All my Apple Mac devices use iCloud but it’s possible to specify which items you wish to put on there. My bank details and other financial details are not stored on there, they are on another external drive just in case a back-up is ever required. Plus I also have another back-up on another external hard drive in case of the worst scenario and other back-ups and iCloud fail. That’s about all I can do in this regard, plus checking regularly that there are no ‘unauthorised’ withdrawals from my bank account.

What a rotten world we have to live in, or to be more accurate should I say it’s not the world just some rotten individuals that live in it!
:thinking: :grinning:

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Neither would I even if the pole was 24k gold plated and diamond studded.

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It’s the same with all of them. They are really useful. I use Onedrive, Dropbox and Google Drive and use them all for selected (different) files.

For example all photos I take with my phone are immediately uploaded to Dropbox and instantly become available on my laptop and desktop.

While I applaud and admire the forum members’ splendid collection of 3.05 metre barge poles, they are cutting off their nose to spite their face in my opinion by not selectively using a free service(s).

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It’s all very clever the way the devices work and with iCloud, information can be shared on any of them. Once the way it all works is understood it’s not too bad to have it all set up to your personal requirements. Also as you say, these services are free up to a certain amount of space. No idea of the cost beyond the amount that is free, I’ve never really needed that due to the other back-ups I have.

Having been on Macs since the mid-1980s, when hard drive space was really important, there wasn’t much of it, I’ve always backed-up everything, just in case. I recall the first ‘storage’ was via 8" disks (Verbatim I think they were called), then 3.5" floppy disks followed by Syquests and then CDs, that’s going back a few years though!
:grinning:

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The only time I have run out of space was with Dropbox because it is all photos, at the moment it tells me I have used 85% of my allowance. When I got to 90+% last time I just copied all the photos to my NAS and deleted them from Dropbox telling the latter not to delete them from the source and then telling it to only back up new photos.

Over time like you I have used various back up systems vary from cassette tapes (datasettes) on my Commodore 64 to quite sophisticated high speed tape drives for IBM computers as well as all the various implementations of floppy drives. Currently I am using a couple of NASs which back up data using batch files.

Interestingly I have recently received a message from Western Digital saying that they are ending support for my WD EX4 as the firmware can no longer be updated to the latest security but that they will be sending me a 20% off voucher in January to replace it. As it happened I was thinking of buying a new NAS to replace my even more elderly ReadyNAS so I will take this opportunity to do so.

As it happens I am not particularly concerned about the security as my WD NAS, while it does act as a server on my LAN, is not accessable via the Internet. The ReadyNAS only holds two HDDs whereas the EX4 hold four.

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I guess that you did read the article linked.

The cloud supplier, in the link, has been ransomeweared, I. E. Taken over by the crooks.

The owners of the system are now trying to get back control but are expecting it to take quite a while.

Meanwhile, the baddies have the systems and everything stored thereon under their control.

Maybe customers will get back their cloud stored stuff, eventually, but will it be safe.

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No I didn’t read it because the cloud is not my only backup, I think we were commenting on the cloud in general, its use and the vast array of bargepoles in UK homes.

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Yes, thanks I did read the article. I guess anyone who couldn’t access anything stored on the Cloud would be sensible to change passwords etc. That is of course, if they knew or even realised what was happening. Definitely after the event that would be the first thing to do.

That is quite correct, it’s a very fascinating subject too in how the Cloud works.

Like everything though, the more sophisticated technology becomes the more opportunities there will be for scammers and crooks to do their worst. I believe it’s often overlooked that these ‘no-goods’ (as I term them) are as clever as those who develop the technology.