Your data can be kidnapped, too!
Digital extortion, in which hackers lock out all your data and seek ransom, is a real threat today, says Mr. Veenu Sandhu.
what is digital or cyber / Digital extortion?
A malware, or malicious software, such as Locky or CryptoLocker is sent to the target computer in the form of an email. Once this malware is downloaded into the computer, it encrypts the hard disk -- that is, it makes the files in the hard disk meaningless. The data then appears only as indecipherable characters such as $#··*
Secure yourself against ransomware
Be cautious about unsolicited attachments. Cyber criminals rely on your dilemma of whether or not to open a document. If in doubt, leave it out.
Don’t give yourself more login power than you need to. And, don’t stay logged in as an administrator any longer than is strictly necessary. Also, avoid browsing, opening documents or other unnecessary activity while you have administrator rights.
Mali also advises against enabling macros in document attachments received via email. “Microsoft deliberately turned off auto-execution of macros by default many years ago as a security measure,” he says. “A lot of malware infections rely on persuading you to turn the macros back on; so don’t do it.”
Consider installing the Microsoft Office Viewers. These viewer applications let you see what the documents look like without having to open them in Word or Excel. In particular, the viewer software doesn’t support macros at all, so you can’t enable macros by mistake.
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