Ransomware

[Phil Ward]

All,

Over the last couple of days I’ve been hearing and reading lots about “ransomware”. Should we Mac users be concerned or is it more of a Windows security issue?

Phil

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Phil Ward

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[Sam - MacAmbulance]

It was a compromised version of Transmission, a BitTorrent client for Mac. It only affected the version hosted on their website (site was hacked) not the automatic update version.

The only thing you need to do to mitigate ransomware is to keep an up to date Time Machine backup. 

Regards

Sam

MacAmbulance Ltd. Providing Affordable Mac/PC Support and Web Development Sam Mullen ACMT +44 (0)7747778022 in...@macambulance.co.uk www.macambulance.co.uk MacAmbulance Ltd. is a registered company in England & Wales, registration number 8466597 This email is intended solely for the addressed recipients and may contain privileged or confidential information. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.

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[Phil Ward]

Thanks Sam. That’s reassuring to know.

Phil

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[Stephen Watson]

As *computer* users we should be concerned, but as Mac users, not unduly I think. Certainly Windows users have much more to be concerned about, but the Mac has never been invulnerable.

There's an interesting article here: [ http://www.macworld.com/article/3040990/security/security-tips-from-a-super-hacker-kevin-mitnicks-advice-on-protecting-laptops-smartphones-and-more.html ] My feeling is that his emphasis on social engineering is the crucial thing. Take the simple and obvious precautions - use at least a 6 digit PIN or alphanumeric code, use something like 1Password to generate/store your passwords and don't believe random scares that arrive flashing in your browser,  emails that ask for PINs and/or account details of any kind or guys phoning you telling you that they have been monitoring your PC and your version of Windows has a virus or something similar!

Cheers,

Stephen

We are Costa of Borg. We will add your vibrancy and distinctiveness to our own. Your town and your customers will service us. Resistance is futile.

On 7 Mar 2016, at 21:28, Phil Ward <phil...@mac.com> wrote:

[David Ransom]

Not happy! Is there anything I can do about the name of this thing?

David Ransom

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[Stephen Watson]

Don't complain- your 15 minutes of fame is here! ;-)

We are Costa of Borg. We will add your vibrancy and distinctiveness to our own. Your town and your customers will service us. Resistance is futile.

[David Ransom]

Oh yes, wonderful! Autographs anyone?

[Toby Leighton]

Knowing how accessible time machine backups are, I wouldn't be completely confident in this being enough to protect you from ransomware.  If you leave your time machine hard drive permanently attached to your computer, or access it over a network "always on" then surely it just as possible for ransomware or viruses to infect your past files as your live ones too?

[Sam - MacAmbulance]

Only the backupd user has write access to a Time Machine backup. The tmutil command line requires your password to elevate privileges also.

Regards

Sam

MacAmbulance Ltd. Providing Affordable Mac/PC Support and Web Development Sam Mullen ACMT +44 (0)7747778022 in...@macambulance.co.uk www.macambulance.co.uk MacAmbulance Ltd. is a registered company in England & Wales, registration number 8466597 This email is intended solely for the addressed recipients and may contain privileged or confidential information. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.

[Toby Leighton]

Awesome :-) that reassures me to a degree as I thought it was a big free for all, based on how simple it is to fish data out of time machine in times of emergency.

[Jason P. Davies]

I read that this one encrypted TM backups as well...

cheers,

-Jason
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On 8 Mar 2016 at 15:25:43 GMT, Toby Leighton <tobi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Awesome :-) that reassures me to a degree as I thought it was a big free
for all, based on how simple it is to fish data out of time machine in
times of emergency.

On Tue, 8 Mar 2016, 15:00 Sam - MacAmbulance, <in...@macambulance.co.uk>
wrote:

> Only the backupd user has write access to a Time Machine backup. The
> tmutil command line requires your password to elevate privileges also.
>
> Regards
>
> Sam
> [image: MacAmbulance]

> [image: facebook] <http://www.facebook.com/macambulance> [image: twitter]
> <http://www.twitter.com/macambulance> [image: linkedin]
> <http://uk.linkedin.com/in/macambulance/>
> MacAmbulance Ltd. Providing Affordable Mac/PC Support and Web Development *Sam
> Mullen ACMT*

[Sam - MacAmbulance]

Fish data out yes, not put back in ;)

Sam

MacAmbulance Ltd. Providing Affordable Mac/PC Support and Web Development Sam Mullen ACMT +44 (0)7747778022 in...@macambulance.co.uk www.macambulance.co.uk MacAmbulance Ltd. is a registered company in England & Wales, registration number 8466597 This email is intended solely for the addressed recipients and may contain privileged or confidential information. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender and delete the email immediately.