This email is to inform you what this infection is and how you should protect your business.
The attack which has taken place was a virus called WannaCry which encrypts your data and asks for a ransom to be paid to get it back.
Microsoft have released Windows Update patches to help protect against this specific vulnerability and will install with automatic Windows Updates on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10.
Please ensure all your computers have applied Windows Updates at some point this month, we would also recommend installing all available updates at this point.
How To Access Windows Update
How you access Windows Update depends on which Windows operating system you’re using:
Windows 10: Windows update is part of System Settings, available from the Start Menu.
Windows 8.1, Windows 7: Windows update is accessible from within Control Panel.
If you are unsure how to check or Windows Updates are failing please do contact us on 0161 233 0099 or email helpdesk@apexcomputing.co.uk
Also, we recommend the following:
- Do not open attachments sent to you in emails from unknown senders. We also recommend that you avoid opening unsolicited email attachments from someone you know and trust.
- Warn colleagues who frequently receive emails from external sources – for instance financial departments or Human Resources.
The majority of our customers use ESET AntiVirus. They have also released more information at the following link:
http://support.eset.com/alert6442/
Ransomware attacks have been increasing over the past 12 months and we have contacted our customers to advise them to have offsite cloud backups to ensure data is stored separate to your network in case your company is infected with a ransomware attack. Most of our customers now have these types of backup systems in place. If you do not and wish to discuss this further, please do get in touch.
If you have any Windows XP clients still in use, Microsoft have released a specific patch for this although support has been removed for Windows XP. We do recommend any clients that still have any computers running Windows XP upgrade to Windows 7/10 immediately.
For more information on how to protect your systems call 0161 233 0099
