In May 2017, a new Ransomware virus called Wanna Cry attacked Windows users all over the world such as the United Kingdom, United States, China, Russia, Spain, Italy and more, preventing the access to your data since they were encrypted. This one asked for a payment of $300 Bitcoins that if they didn’t pay immediately would increase with time.
In this article we are going to teach about the 5 most important steps to protect your information:
1. Make security copy or “backup” of your data regularly.
Wanna Cry uses a protocol called Server Message Block (SMB) that Windows uses to connect machines to file systems through a network. So it is very important to do a backup of your information to easily solve these cases in the future.
2. Download the updated security patches MS17-010
WannaCrypt spreads very quickly through the vulnerability of the Windows network. In March, Microsoft corrected it with MS17-010 Security Update, but not all devices updated at the same time. If you haven’t done it, please update it as soon as possible.
You can click on this link to start the update.
MS17-010 is available for:
Windows Server 2016, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista.
For Windows 2003 and XP. There is no official security update, we recommend you update to Windows 10 or whichever other MS17-010 patched version.
3. Close ports 445, 135, 137, 138, 139.
Wanna Cry is infecting machine to through the network port of the Windows operating system as mentioned above running high risk and network sharing. Therefore we recommend that you close the ports 445, 135, 137, 138 and 139 via the Windows Firewall.
4. Install the most recent antivirus, Windows Defender.
Microsoft launched Windows Defender as an update that detects Wanna Cry as Ransom: Win32/WannaCrypt, so that you download the updated version of the antivirus, enable and run it to detect this ransomware.
5. Do not open email attachments or click on links from unknown source.
We hope that this advice have been helpful. As always, ClickPanda is your support to give you the best day to day advice.
