I was just watching a news report on the latest cyber ransom attack that has locked up the files on thousands of systems worldwide with some early suggestions directing blame towards the North Koreans. The advice from the computer expert was that in order to avoid becoming a victim of this type of attack you need to be updating your system and backing up your files to an external hard drive or the cloud as often as possible. The interviewer suggested that he was going to go home that night and backup up his Ipad, Iphone, Imac but was told don't worry Apple are not affected by this worm only Windows users. I have run Apple machines since 1989 and have never installed any virus protection programs, I have never had a virus or any other attack, if Apple's market share continues to increase that will probably change so I continue to install updates and back up my files to an external hard disc just in case. For those of you running Windows I suggest that it is even more important to reguarly install updates and back up your files, you can buy an external hard drive for under $50 and it could save you a lot of headaches down the track.
I also partition my hard drive to allow all my Data, (word, excel, photos, etc), to be on a separate partition of the hard drive
Hopefully if I am attacked I can just re-image my operating system
What I consider important to me, is duplicated on other hard/USB/disk drives
In my opinion, (during the last world cyber ransom attack) if thy are demanding payment in bitcoins, because bitcoins can not be traced, then bitcoins should be banned
Also in my opinion, (as also during the last world cyber ransom attack), when a health service is attacked, then the attackers should be charged with murder, if any patient dies
I am not convinced that it is the North Koreans who are behind the ransom attacks
Backing up files still may not work as some viruses are 'sleepers' and are programmed to come to life at a certain date which means your backup data contains the virus.
Blame the CIA. There should be an outcry against them -followed closely by a huge lawsuit.
1st they find it can be done
2nd they leak the info
3rd they say they cannot trace bitcoins
5th they blame it on North Korea (actually I dont know they did that, just lifted it from above)
Methinks a few people in the CIA might have Apple shares...........
