I recently attended a conference and was talking to a few law firm office managers. One of them has been repeatedly hit by cryptolocker, as recently as December of 2014! One of our bragging points has been that all our support plans include technology to block cryptolocker called Umbrella. While antivirus software may or may not catch it, there is a new category of security software that watches and filters connectivity to various websites and servers in order to catch malicious behavior. Cryptolocker works by first infecting the computer, then “phoning home” to get its instructions on what to do. While umbrella may not prevent the initial infection (but it can in many cases,) it will notice the phone home phase, block it and alert IT. Umbrella also does a great job blocking people from even getting to malicious websites in the first place.
I recently attended a conference and was talking to a few law firm office managers. One of them has been repeatedly hit by cryptolocker, as recently as December of 2014! One of our bragging points has been that all our support plans include technology to block cryptolocker called Umbrella. While antivirus software may or may not catch it, there is a new category of security software that watches and filters connectivity to various websites and servers in order to catch malicious behavior. Cryptolocker works by first infecting the computer, then “phoning home” to get its instructions on what to do. While umbrella may not prevent the initial infection (but it can in many cases,) it will notice the phone home phase, block it and alert IT. Umbrella also does a great job blocking people from even getting to malicious websites in the first place.
Antivirus is not enough anymore. If your IT provider is not including something similar to umbrella, you can purchase it here: https://www.opendns.com/enterprise-security/ The price is not very expensive and it easily pays for itself the first time it stops a large infection.