##Security Alert: More Ransomware

Security Alert. Beware of a particularly nasty variant of ransomware that is going far beyond encrypting your harddrive. This one is particularly scary because traditional email filters and antivirus aren't effective. Here's a blurb from a recent blog post regarding this issue:

Instead of "just" encrypting data files on the workstation (plus any network drive it can find) and locking the machine, this variant of the Cerber ransomware also started adding a DDoS bot that can quietly blast spoofed network traffic at various IPs. This is the first time DDoS malware has been bundled within a ransomware infection. This means that while the victim is unable to access their endpoint, that same endpoint is being used to deny service to another victim.

Many of the tools we employ in our managed services help to mitigate the risks, but no tool is foolproof. Again, the critical item is educating your users on not opening messages they didn't expect to get, and NOT clicking on links within those messages or any link they cannot verify.

So, what can you do? Distribute this to your staff. Continually educate existing staff, and integrate security awareness training in to your new hire onboarding and training procedures.

Here's an article from knowbe4.com laying out more of the specifics.

https://blog.knowbe4.com/alert-this-new-ransomware-strain-adds-ddos-bot-causing-more-damage

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