Our friends at East I.T. recently let us know of an emerging email virus threat.

There is a new variant of the 'Cryptolocker' virus doing the rounds at the moment which is avoiding detection by Antivirus software. This virus has impacted a number of local businesses in the past two days and has potential to cause a lot of damage, data loss and computer downtime.
 
To protect your business and data please pass the following message on to all staff/teams urgently.
 
What can you do to protect ourselves against this virus?

• Do NOT open emails regarding 'CV' or 'Resume' and the attachments, this is a known attack path
• Do NOT open email attachments (ZIP files) from known or unknown senders unless it is expected
• Do NOT open emails from unknown senders
• Only visit “work related” or well known (e.g. nzhearld) websites

What will happen if “CryptoLocker” is successful, and does get onto one of your PC’s?

• It will systematically start locking files on your PC, and then work its way through the business server and network of computers.
• Once infected, the end result will be all business files and some programs are unable to be viewed/opened
• To unlock files a 'ransom' must be paid or a recovery of the business system from backup is needed
• CryptoLocker will also email all your contacts and try to infect their computers

To find out more about this threat, please read the following article on Security Central.

The best protection is being vigilant in regards to the websites visited, and emails staff open.