This story has been over-reported on already, so I figured I would join the party! The FBI issued a warning regarding malware that completely wipes all data on a computer’s hard drive. Destructive malware is nothing new, but it has fallen out of favor with malware writers probably because there isn’t much to gain by destroying someone’s data. Of late, it seems that most destructive malware has been targeted, so for the most part the average person doesn’t need to worry about that risk. However, that may be about to change.

All evidence indicates that this malware wreaked havoc on Sony pictures recently. If I can find a bright side to this type of news, it’s the fact that people tend to listen up when they hear that they can potentially loose family photos and videos forever if they click on the wrong link. Low probability perhaps, but very high impact! So I will take this opportunity to make a few recommendations.

I am not going to tell you to install anti-virus, even if you are a Mac user, because I know that my blog readers already have AV installed…right?!  And I know you would never log in to your local workstation as an administrator to check email and surf the web, so no need to mention that!

Consider installing and using EMET if you are a Windows user. I have been running it on my Windows desktop set to “Maximum security settings” with no adverse effects.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  There was one patch recently that caused EMET to crash IE continually, but updating EMET resolved the problem.

Backup, backup, backup. Oh and don’t forget to backup your data. Make sure your data is backed up too. And if you are really smart, you will backup your data.

One more thing…AUTOMATE your backup. Don’t rely on remembering to manually copy your data to a USB drive. Automate the process otherwise when you need your backup, it will be 1 year old. I guarantee it!

Did I mention the importance of backing up your data?

Technical Details published by Symantec about Backdoor.Destover:  http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2014-120209-5631-99&tabid=2

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