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That's great until the ransomware gets clever and encrypts your backups too. I'm extremely skeptical of the people that say ransomware is good for the economy

That's great until the ransomware gets clever and encrypts your backups too. I'm extremely skeptical of the people that say ransomware is good for the economy or whatever. Broken window fallacy. Sure it creates an incentive to protect against hackers. But isn't that a bit circular? Hackers are good because they create inventive to protect against hackers? Ransomware is by far the most economically damaging kind (and personally damaging, for all the people that lose their family photos...) Theres a lot of blame to go around for this situation. Shitty anti virus companies that sell a false sense of security and barely work. The broken security model of windows and most software. How inconvenient and expensive it is to actually do backups, so because of most basic human psychology most people put it off... If they are even technically minded enough to know they should, and most people aren't. Programs that pollute my home folder and documents with garbage that increases the space necessary to backup (OK that's just my personal issue.)

digler999 10y ago
> Ransomware is by far the most economically damaging kind is it though, compared to malware ? Consider an elderly person who gets infected with malware/spyware, making his user experience frustrating and confusing. 2 or 3 trips to the Geek Squad for $150 a visit and you're at the same financial loss as paying a ransom. I'm sure there are also people who just dont use their computers due to infections. Plus, malware has got to be much more prevalent, at least for a long time it was, not sure what the state of it is now. So in total, I would wager that many more dollars have been spent for techs to remove it than have been spent on ransomware.
Confusion 10y ago
I saved my dad from ransomware using the Crashplan backups I set up. Ransomware can't retroactively encrypt remote (incremental) backups (unless they hack the service). Admittedly, I now realize they could have deleted them, so I need to enable the password protection in the app, so nothing can be changed without the password. However, I don't think it's worth it for the builders to invest in that: the number of people that could rescue themselves in such a way is probably negligible.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  The problem is once enough users start using services like that, then it becomes rational for them to invest in that. It's sort of like security through obscurity. There is no solution for the general population.
  - rini17 10y ago
    It's not so hard for backup service to ensure users can undo any changes (XX days back) no matter what way files are removed/overwriten.
rini17 10y ago
Use tools like Seafile and Owncloud that keep old versions and offsite. They offer both hosted service and self-installation option. The client notifies you that "files X,Y changed" which can make you notice anything untoward is happening to files you are not working with at the moment.
Bartweiss 10y ago
Backup encryption is already out there, even. Time Machine is a very popular solution, and implies a lot of desirable demographics (owns a Mac, set up something about as complicated as a BC wallet, probably has no other backup). So there have been some encryption schemes that stick around silently pending a Time Machine backup and then take out the files there too. It's pretty hard to say that users "should be safe from this" - most of the solid solutions discussed in this thread are probably used by <5% of people, and maybe much less than that.

digler999 10y ago

> Ransomware is by far the most economically damaging kind is it though, compared to malware ? Consider an elderly person who gets infected with malware/spyware, making his user experience frustrating and confusing. 2 or 3 trips to the Geek Squad for $150 a visit and you're at the same financial loss as paying a ransom. I'm sure there are also people who just dont use their computers due to infections. Plus, malware has got to be much more prevalent, at least for a long time it was, not sure what the state of it is now. So in total, I would wager that many more dollars have been spent for techs to remove it than have been spent on ransomware.

Confusion 10y ago

I saved my dad from ransomware using the Crashplan backups I set up. Ransomware can't retroactively encrypt remote (incremental) backups (unless they hack the service). Admittedly, I now realize they could have deleted them, so I need to enable the password protection in the app, so nothing can be changed without the password. However, I don't think it's worth it for the builders to invest in that: the number of people that could rescue themselves in such a way is probably negligible.

Houshalter 10y ago
The problem is once enough users start using services like that, then it becomes rational for them to invest in that. It's sort of like security through obscurity. There is no solution for the general population.
- rini17 10y ago
  It's not so hard for backup service to ensure users can undo any changes (XX days back) no matter what way files are removed/overwriten.

rini17 10y ago

Use tools like Seafile and Owncloud that keep old versions and offsite. They offer both hosted service and self-installation option. The client notifies you that "files X,Y changed" which can make you notice anything untoward is happening to files you are not working with at the moment.

Bartweiss 10y ago

Backup encryption is already out there, even. Time Machine is a very popular solution, and implies a lot of desirable demographics (owns a Mac, set up something about as complicated as a BC wallet, probably has no other backup). So there have been some encryption schemes that stick around silently pending a Time Machine backup and then take out the files there too. It's pretty hard to say that users "should be safe from this" - most of the solid solutions discussed in this thread are probably used by <5% of people, and maybe much less than that.