Thursday, April 30, 2015

Internet Security in 2015


I got a phone call a few days ago from a young lady whose file extensions were all replaced with ".ECC". The folders where said files resided now all included a new text document titled "HELP_RESTORE_FILES.txt". This sounded like another variant of the kinds of infections I encounter all the time. However, after running through my usual process, I found that these files werent actually "infected" per say, but rather that they were encrypted by a virus called EccKrypt.
This was a new one for me, and basically boils down to that age old technician's warning;

BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!

The computer is now an appliance to which almost every American owns. With Windows still dominating the market, big businesses are seeing the demand and the opportunity for profit in promising advanced protection from the big bad hackers. Now we see ads for products like the FixMeStick, MyCleanPC.com, Win Cleaner, and MaxMySpeed.com - and just like everything else in big business - its all one big lie. 
No antivirus solution is completely infallible, and even with the latest and greatest installed, one can still get infected. Further, removing infections is often not the concern! What about identity theft? None of the aforementioned "protection" products offer real time scanning or any form of firewall, and in the case of my new client, the damage has been done! Even with a squeaky clean PC, her files were encrypted - How is a Registry Cleaner going to take care of that?!

So call a mechanic for your car, a roofer for your house, and a tech for your computer. Ensure that you have the best protection in place and the best backup in place. Call MooreITHelp.com at 617-396-7044, or shoot me an email at Help@MooreITHelp.com.