Over the last couple of years, we have seen a marked increase in both the amount and the sophistication of viruses and cyber attacks. The type of virus which is now causing local business’ harm is the encryption type virus or cyber attack. Our best defence, a good backup!

The goal of an encryption type virus cyber attack is to make your business data inaccessible to you and all of your staff. Some also operate in such a way that will prevent a Server from even booting up. This is especially true in the case of Microsoft Windows Servers. We are finding that mant of these virus infections are sent to its victims via an email – even through Microsoft’s 365 email system, which is a secure and well patched system. The email is invariably disguised as a harmless file that the recipient would want to read, such as pretending to have an attachment containing an invoice or remittance for instance.

At the point of the infection “entering” the PC/laptop via an email (or similar) it will be busy in the background encrypting files on the computer and the Server and, in some instances, other computers on the network. All the while the “victim” using the PC will most likely not be aware of a problem.

Once the infection, or virus, has completed its encryption of any files it can access both on the computer, network and Servers. It will most likely produce a big warning screen in bright red or similar telling the victim that the files are now inaccessible and there is most often a ransom to pay. We have seen a lot of variation of ransom demands, in most business network situations, payments would be certainly in the thousands of pounds. Fortunately, up to now, none of our clients have ever had to pay the ransomer’s demands due to the time and attention we pay to backing up our clients Microsoft Servers.

Part of our IT or Lichfield business computer support package involves monitoring our clients Servers and data to ensure that everything is backing up, especially company data available from a Microsoft Server over a network. Our advice is to use removable media (such as USB hard drives) to back up all critical business data. The next step, and it’s a crucial one, is to ensure that the backup drive is swapped on a frequent basis.

You may also want to consider improving your cyber security overall or even going through the Cyber Essentials Process.

The reason behind this frequent drive swapping (or rotating) is simple but extremely effective against these ransom viruses. A drive that is not physically plugged in cannot be infected by an active attack. This “offline” backup is the main port of call from recovering a business that has been attacked by a virus or ransomware. We have found that most of the later viruses are infecting any USB backup drive that is plugged in. Therefore, if the backup drive is not swapped in a week, your possible data loss is a weeks’ worth of work.

We at Total IT Services are recommending a full spectrum backup approach. We advise full Server backup as well as Microsoft 365 Outlook and Sharepoint backups. Especially as we are seeing an increased number of 365 accounts hacked. The concern being that an account is hacked and the email or sharepoint data deleted.

Total IT Services – Here to help…

We are here to help advise local businesses on the best types of business data recovery for any virus attack or even Server hardware failure.

Call us on Lichfield 898183

Computer Backups Lichfield | Business IT Support Services | Microsoft 365 | Email | Data Recovery