Georgia county pays a whopping $400,000 to get rid of a ransomware infection
Are you still complaining about the cost of anti-virus and firewall protection for your computer systems? Still got the free version of AVG, Avast, Malwarebytes as your main protection? You have no backup software or disaster plan in place? I know firms that do not take backup seriously, don't have time.
It used to be the crooks robbed the banks because that's where the money was. Today, most firms and people conduct some if not all their financial activity on the internet. Criminals know this too and engage in less risky but no less lucrative activities by trying to steal your credentials and financial information.
There is another segment of cyber-crime that affects businesses, data hijacking. If your firm is the victim of a ransomware attack, the malicious payload is the encryption of all your data files and it turns your data into useless files halting the ability to continue ongoing operations.
It happened recently to Jackson County Georgia and cost the county $400,000. On March 1st the local government's computer systems were hit by the ransomware that forced local law enforcement and government to work the way they did prior to computers, by paper. The Sheriff said they continued to function, it was just more difficult.
The county consulted with the FBI and a cyber-security expert. After negotiations with the ransomware hackers, $400,000 was paid to get the decryption key to free the county's data.
It was just under a year ago that the city of Atlanta paid $3 million in contracts to recover from a ransomware attack on its systems.
Click on the link below to read the entire story.
The downsides of buying a new Mac
The hefty price tag is only the beginning of the pain that comes as a result of buying a new Mac.
Mac users, what to say. You would think that anyone who pays that kind of money must do a lot of transaction crunching or have a need for computational power not found outside Cray computers. Not true. Until 2005 Apple used the Power PC manufactured by Motorolla/IBM and we were told how superior these were to Intel processors, but then they switched to Intel???
Most Apple users surf the internet, open e-mail and use Microsoft Office. A complaint I hear from current and former PC users, it is not as efficient or intuitive to manage multiple instances of Office Apps at the same time.
And the choices are?
How insane is the purchase of optional items when buying a Mac? Look at the prices on these options;
Core i7 to Core i9 processor, $300
a bump in RAM from 16 GB to 32 GB, an extra $400
need more storage, upgrading from the base 1 TB drive to a 4 TB drive for $3200. Yes, you can add a 4 TB option to your base $2,799 model for an extra $3200.
My gamer clients and friends in the PC world laugh at this because Apples use the same components that are found and offered for PCs. The difference is PC users don't need the Apple store to work on their computers (notebooks are an exception since they are not as accessible as desktops but RAM and hard drives can be accessed and upgraded on many Windows notebooks).
One can purchase a 4 TB Samsung EVO 860 on Amazon for $549, this is an SSD, solid state Top of the line in performance.
It's incredulous, Ridiculoussness and more! Read the entire article and if you upgrade every year, buy that Apple Mac.
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