Defense Against Crypto-Ransomware
I don’t think I’m much of a target for the wave of crypto-ransomware that is rightfully scaring lots of folks, but I figured out the other day that I’m invulnerable to it anyhow.
I have about 1.3 TB of data that I maintain carefully, since it includes (for example) most of my coding history, my music and video collections, and lots of other goodies. Since I don’t have a fast-enough internet connection (it’s the upload speed that matters) I can’t really do online backup, so I came up with a workaround.
I keep six (yes, six) copies of my data synchronized in my office. Two of them are on different virtual drives on my ancient PowerEdge 2900 tower server. One is on an old MacPro that I run ESX-i on and use as a storage server. One is on my coding machine, one on my old coding machine, and one is on my laptop (on an attached USB HD).
This pretty much assures me that unless the building burns down, I’m gonna have a safe copy of my data left over. Since I synchronize every week or two, I won’t likely lose a lot of work no matter which copy I resurrect my data from. BTW to synchronize the data I use the excellent Beyond Compare software from Scooter Software.
It occurred to me the other day that so long as at least one of my backup sets is on a computer that is off, I’m invulnerable to crypto-ransomware. If I got infected I could always nuke the infected computers from orbit and reacquire my data from one of the off machines. So long as your data fits on one machine, and you have two or more of them, and you always keep one of them off or disconnected from the network, you’re safe.
Hope this helps. I cannot stand virus-makers, and this latest crop is the nastiest yet. Be forearmed.