CryptoLocker Strikes Again With Disasterous Results

The battle with CryptoLocker continued today but this time with a twist.  A client called for help today because a local competitor had visited them yesterday to remove an infection of CryptoLocker.  After working on it all day, the clients problem was worse than ever and the competitor had to leave to "deal with other obligations".  Talk about being left high and dry!

What made the problem so severe was that this client didn't have ANY backup to restore the corrupted files on their server caused by this software.   Yes, they had backup software.  Yes, they had a tape drive.  No, the backup hadn't been run in 5 years and nobody noticed!
Through normal human failure, backing up the server fell through the cracks and now they're faced with a scrambled server with no fallback solution.

This latest version of CryptoLocker is also much more aggressive in the corruption of files.  Earlier releases targeted Microsoft Office files, graphics and acrobat files.  This version wipes out almost everything it touches including WordPerfect files, AutoCadd files and many, many more.  It encrypts every file on every mapped drive that the infected PC is connected to including the server and any storage devices.  The encryption level is very high and nobody has been able to crack the encryption to-date.

Without a backup the client doesn't have many options for recovery and one of them is to pay the $300 ransom and hope that the hacker that created this malware will actually provide the decryption key to undo this mess.

We've spent most of the last day trying to undo the damage the competitor did by only "halfway uninstalling" the malware so we can get the ransomware working well enough to pay the ransom because the server contents are trashed without much hope of recovery.  We're still working on it though!   

Stay tuned for further updates . . .  we're not walking away from this customer like our competitor did!

When we get the clients server stabilized, the client has already signed on to adding our DataVault Backup Solution to their business which is fully automatic and has our technician monitoring service keeping track of their backups.  Each day they'll also get a confirmation e-mail verifying that their data has been backed up and protected to ease their mind about ever having to deal with a nightmare like this again.

Have similar concerns about the safety of your business data? 

Call ACT today @ (847) 639-7000 for a free consultation.