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GET YOUR DATA BACK WITHOUT PAYING RANSOM
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Quote:In early 2016, aspiring U.K.-based photographer Amos Rabbani opened an email attachment purporting to be a parcel tracker. No sooner had he double-clicked on the file than he received a message saying that his data — including his entire photography portfolio — had been encrypted, and demanding a ransom of 1,000 pounds to recover it. With no leads from his anti-virus provider and several other companies, Rabbani reached out to malware researcher Fabian Wosar. Using the ransom note and some of the encrypted files as clues, Wosar was able to get all of Rabbani’s data back in about two hours. “I was told repeatedly by ‘the best’ that it was impossible to recover my files,” says Rabbani. “And then Fabian resurrected them from the dead.”

Ransomware — software that mainly targets Windows computers and threatens to publish private data or block access to it unless a ransom is paid — is not a new thing, and some sources even say it’s on the decline. But attacks are becoming more sophisticated and more costly to victims — an estimated $11.5 billion by 2019. Software like Emsisoft’s free ransomware buster has saved people more than $500 million since the company started helping ransomware victims in 2012.


We reached out to three battle-weary ransomware knights — Wosar (whose day job is at Emsisoft), Lawrence Abrams from Bleeping Computer (a computer help site started in 2004) and Michael Gillespie, who founded the free ID Ransomware service three years ago — for tips on how individuals and businesses can thwart the thievery. They all had surprisingly similar advice.

With ransomware — and all other computer nasties, for that matter — prevention is way better than cure. All three experts advise backing up your data using the 3-2-1 rule: “Three copies of your data, on two devices, one of which is located off-site,” explains Gillespie. If this sounds a bit beyond you — it does seem like the IT equivalent of being told to stop eating carbs, fats and sugars overnight — remember that one backup is far superior to none.

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