{"id":9639,"date":"2018-08-16T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/?p=9639"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:05:48","slug":"beware-of-ransomware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2018\/08\/16\/beware-of-ransomware\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of ransomware. And don\u2019t pay the ransom!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9640\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9640\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9640\" src=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--e1534944716135.png\" alt=\"&quot; &quot;\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9640\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/ransomware-virus-malware-hacker-2321665\/\">(CC0\/Tumisu\/Pixabay)<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ransomware is malicious software that can infect and encrypt files on your computers and other devices, preventing you from accessing them<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Crimin<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">als use it to threaten victims with loss of their data unless they pay ransom in return for a \u201ckey\u201d to unlock their folders, files, and devices.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ransomware typically gets on devices when people open infected email attachments, click shared document links to infected documents, or click links in email that go to malicious websites. You can protect yourself by doing the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hover your mouse over links in email to examine them before clicking.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you receive an unexpected email attachment, check with the sender before opening. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make regular backups and keep those backups separate from your devices (in case your device stops working).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your computer or other device is infected by ransomware, don&#8217;t pay the ransom. There are no guarantees when dealing with criminals. If the infected computer or device is owned or managed by the university, or it is used to access or maintain sensitive U-M data, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.safecomputing.umich.edu\/report-it-security-incident\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report the problem to Information Assurance<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> immediately.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.safecomputing.umich.edu\/tips\/dont-pay-ransom\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn more on Safe Computing<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ransomware is malicious software that can infect and encrypt files on your computers and other devices, preventing you from accessing them. Criminals use it to threaten victims with loss of their data unless they pay ransom in return for a \u201ckey\u201d to unlock their folders, files, and devices. Ransomware typically gets on devices when people open infected email\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2018\/08\/16\/beware-of-ransomware\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":9640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_umich_oidc_access":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[488,331],"class_list":["post-9639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safe-computing","tag-cybersecurity","tag-malware"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--e1534944716135.png",600,450,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--187x140.png",187,140,true],"medium":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--267x200.png",267,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--768x576.png",665,499,true],"large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--700x525.png",600,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--e1534944716135.png",600,450,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--e1534944716135.png",600,450,false],"excerpt-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--200x140.png",200,140,true],"themonic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--60x42.png",60,42,true],"ioslider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--658x300.png",658,300,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--665x499.png",665,499,true],"400x250-crop":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ransomware-2321665_1280--e1534944716135.png",333,250,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Matt Martin, ITS Privacy Office","author_link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/author\/mattmart\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Ransomware is malicious software that can infect and encrypt files on your computers and other devices, preventing you from accessing them. Criminals use it to threaten victims with loss of their data unless they pay ransom in return for a \u201ckey\u201d to unlock their folders, files, and devices. Ransomware typically gets on devices when people&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9639"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9643,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9639\/revisions\/9643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}