CryptoLocker is back and more popular than ever, just weeks after Operation Tovar dismantled the Gameover Zeus and CryptoLocker botnets. We’ve recently seen a return of the CryptoLocker malware that plagued many networks over the past year, apparently delivered by website drive-by downloads on disreputable websites.

CryptoLocker and its variants is a particularly nasty piece of malware that encrypts documents on hard drives that it comes in contact with, then asks for a ransom to decrypt the files. Because it uses one of the highest grade encryption algorithms, it is essentially impossible to decrypt without the key, so the only options are to restore from backup or pay the ransom and hope for the best.

Fortunately for our customers who have gotten this malware, our backup and disaster recovery systems made the recovery from the malware as close to painless as possible, with a minimum of downtime. However for other networks (none of which were existing customers) that we’ve worked on who didn’t have have good backups, the process was painful and detrimental to their business. In some cases even resulting in the loss of several years of accounting and personal productivity documents.

The good news though is that it’s easy and cost effective to protect your business and personal machines against these types of malware by using good backup and disaster recovery systems, along with anti-virus, anti-malware and automated Windows patching. If you’re not sure if your systems are properly protected and backed up, ask a OK Technology Solutions associate today for quick check of your systems today.