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1. Ransomware Mac Protection
2. Anti Ransomware For Mac

The biggest risk to Mac users is the rising tide of a specific kind of malware, called ransomware, which you can defend against using targeted anti-malware software that doesn’t rely on virus. Apr 02, 2020  The Best Ransomware Protection for 2020. When a ransomware attack turns your most important files into encrypted gibberish, and paying to get those files back is.

Ransomware, or malicious software that keeps files or a computer in hostage until the owner pays a ransom for decryption, is unfortunately becoming a fact of life. It doesn’t really matter if you are using a Windows or Mac device. Users of different operating systems share the worry and can be prone to ransomware and its risks.

Let this quick article help you protect your Mac from ransomware and properly remedy any situation involving this threat.

A Brief Glimpse into Ransomware

Most viruses are written for the Windows operating system because of its sheer popularity. This is why Windows users need to make regular backups of their files, install powerful antivirus, or use browsers or email with enhanced security.

Ransomware usually integrates into your OS on a low level for it to fully access the files on your hard drive. Note, however, that paying the ransom won’t guarantee decryption. Attackers can fool you or ask for more money in order to get your files unencrypted, sometimes without the intention of doing their part.

Ransomware Mac Protection

In case the fee remains unpaid, ransomware can automatically corrupt and delete the locked files. This leaves most users with little time and clear thinking to pursue alternate means of fixing the problem.

How Is Ransomware Transmitted?

This form of virus can infect your computer through one of several ways:

• You open an attachment coming from an infected email.
• Your machine reads a USB stick or another external media device that comes from an external or untrusted source.
• You accidentally download an infected file after visiting a compromised site.
• The ransomware gets help from malware to get downloaded onto a specific computer.
• You visit a compromised website and the virus breaches the security protection of your OS, installing itself even without user interaction!

Part of the surging popularity of ransomware is the lack of awareness and knowledge to deal with it. According to a CloudBerry survey in the United States, 85 percent won’t pay ransom no matter how much it costs, while $300 is the maximum sum that survey respondents might pay.

Another uncommonly known ability that ransomware has: penetrate Mac computers.

What Ransomware Can Do to Your Mac

Back in March 2016, Apple customers became the target of the first Mac-focused ransomware. Prior to this time, there had been reports of the so-called “proof of concept,” meaning researchers already learned how to execute malware on Macs. Cybercriminals, however, finally seemed to have executed real-life ransomware attacks.

In this specific instance, affected users downloaded a program known as “Transmission for BitTorrent.” This was used for P2P file sharing via BitTorrent files, or illegally downloaded media files such as music, movies, and TV shows.

In the ransomware for Mac situation, users unluckily downloaded a tainted version of the installer for the software. The installer contained OSX.Keranger, a Trojan horse or malware that can delete, modify, hold hostage, copy, or steal data. OSX.Keranger encrypted affected files and demanded a fee, which was one Bitcoin or around $400 at that time.

To better understand how Mac computers become at risk, here’s a look at how Mac is used:

1. Installing the Windows system on a bare metal, which means using a personal computer with Mac hardware wrap. Using Windows on a bare metal is akin to using a regular Windows machine, so you’d need to keep your OS updated, install an antivirus system, and be careful in your actions.
2. Using OS X natively and then launching Windows from inside a virtual station occasionally. Usually, Windows is installed inside a virtual machine (VM) and launched from that special container if needed. The VM is typically linked to the internal Mac network to access the internet. Note, however, that if the VM does not involve important data, cybercriminals have nothing important to encrypt.

Yes, Mac might not be as popular a target for ransomware as Windows. But this does not translate to full protection. According to McAfee, Mac malware actually grew a whopping 744 percent by the end of 2016. The potential reason for this, however, is adware bundling, where adware sticks banner ads to a given computer but doesn’t affect user’s data.

Another specific case of ransomware for Mac is OSX/Filecoder, developed for OS X 10.11.x/10.12.x and can infect a Mac when looking for Adobe Premiere or Microsoft Office patches in torrent networks. It appears like a harmless patch archive with the “Start” button.

But once you press the button, ransomware will penetrated your Mac and encrypt lots of files. With its built-in tools and commands, Filecoder gets to run from user context and won’t even need to have your permissions regarding those changes!

Existing research tells us that while OS X has a relatively high level of security, it does not fully protect you from ransomware and related malware threats. Add this to the fact that Mac is already in the radar of cybercriminals, stronger and more persistent than ever.

Steps to Protect Your Mac from Ransomware

Ransomware can infiltrate even macOS. There shouldn’t be room for complacency among Mac users, and they should take active steps to keep their systems up to date and their security levels high.

There are several steps you can take to protect your Mac from criminal software, including the following:

• Back Up Your Files Regularly. Think about it: if you already have your files safe and sound, criminals no longer have any leverage. Your own uninfected copy will save you. Store these backups on an external drive, an iCloud, or a hybrid backup structure where you combine external storage and cloud storage.
• Avoid Installing Dodgy Software. This will flood the application you want to download with suspicious tools. As a preventive measure, read user reviews on apps you want to get, too.
• Keep All Your Software Up to Date. These security updates comprise patches that mend security holes criminals can use against you. Update all software programs and apps on your Mac as soon as the latest updates are available.
• Be Smart About Passwords. Avoid using empty passwords for your user login. Blank passwords have the power to disable most of the built-in protection tools on Mac. Setting the password will prompt OS X to confirm system-level changes, hence reducing the chances of ransomware getting integrated into your computer.
• Pay Attention to Security. Always install system security updates as prompted by your operating system. These updates carry the protections you need as soon as new threats are uncovered. In addition, pair your powerful security tools with an effective Mac optimizer tool to get rid of junk and unnecessary files that are interfering with your Mac’s stable operations.
• Be on Alert When It Comes to Emails. Delete any suspicious email, particularly if it contains attachments or links. Watch out for Microsoft Office email attachment saying you should enable macros to view content. If you don’t know or trust the email source, simply trash it.

Summary

Mac is often lauded for its sophisticated security systems and protection. Its users, though, are not 100 percent spared from ransomware attacks.

This is a real risk, for example, if you run Windows as the main OS on your Mac and keep all crucial data there. The risk isn’t as high if you are running Mac natively with OS X and occasionally use Windows to work with specific software, but it is not entirely eliminated either.

Take note of the tips we outlined above to protect your Mac from ransomware in 2019 and beyond.

Enterprises, small companies and everyone in between is adopting cloud-based tools and environments for their business and personal needs. RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud report found that 82 percent of enterprises were using a hybrid cloud strategy, meaning they are using the infrastructure services of more than one cloud provider. In addition, according to projections made last year by Intuit, 78 percent of small businesses will be fully in the cloud by 2020. By saving data in virtual environments, companies are becoming more flexible and saving money on their IT infrastructure, allowing them to do better business and enhance revenues in the long run.

Anti Ransomware For Mac

The cloud is an amazing technology that is helping organizations improve productivity, collaborate better, scale their IT strategies and increase cost-effectiveness within their infrastructure. But there might be something sinister afoot where it comes to cloud computing: Ransomware.

The problem with Cerber

Ransomware is the bane of companies across the board; by locking up data and applications and encrypting them so that they can’t be accessed, hackers blackmail organizations into giving them money, usually in bitcoin. Ransomware can infiltrate company networks by various means, but one of the more popular ways is by convincing an unwitting employee to open an infected email attachment.

Even programs with reasonable security controls are being exploited by hackers. Using social engineering techniques, malicious actors are finding ways to infiltrate company networks and render data and applications useless. For example, Trend Micro researchers recently found that a specific strain of malware has been causing havoc for users of tools in Microsoft 365. The latest variant is called RANSOM_CERBER.CAD, and it’s being used to target home and business users of Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity platform.

“This variant of Cerber is able to encrypt 442 file types using a combination of AES-265 and RSA, modify the machine’s Internet Explorer Zone Settings, delete shadow copies, disable Windows Startup Repair and terminate processes from Outlook, The Bat!, Thunderbird and Microsoft Word,” Trend Micro researchers wrote. “After querying the affected system’s country, the ransomware terminates itself if found running in countries under the Commonwealth of Independent States.”

The first instance of Cerber ransomware emails was spotted by Trend Micro researchers in May 2016 and even before that, but lately the strain of malware has been even more active. Back in March, Trend Micro threat response engineer Rhena Inocencio wrote that RANSOM_CERBER.A was able to play an audio message using a computer-generated voice –a creepy announcement that a user’s files have been encrypted and that a ransom must be paid in order for access to be relinquished to the rightful owner.

Another frightening thing about Cerber is that it may have been created with the purpose of being sold to other hackers as something of a white-label malware strain, which people with malicious intent could acquire and then send out with a customizable message attached.

“Peeking closer at this config file we discover that this particular ransomware is quite easily customizable –allowing the owner to change the ransom note, the targeted extensions as well as blacklist countries,” Inocencio wrote. “This suggests that CERBER itself was designed to be sold to other enterprising cybercriminals, to be tailor-fit for their needs.”

Cerber isn’t the only ransomware on the prowl looking to use cloud environments for nefarious purposes. In addition, according to SC Magazine contributor Doug Olenick, another new strain of malware called cuteRansomware is using Google Docs as a jumping-off point for infiltrating networks. By utilizing Google Docs, malicious actors can both deliver malware and exfiltrate data via command-and-control – and these functions may go undetected due to traditional security tools’ lack of visibility into SSL.

Bring mac screen to show app. Your screenshot will be taken as soon as the selection is made. Instead, you just bring up the same toolbar as you do for screenshots. Control-click, right-click, or two-finger-click on the screenshot appears in the bottom-right corner of your screen.Use the contextual menu to choose where to save the screenshot, send it, show it in the Finder, delete it, or mark it up.How to record your screen on MacScreen recording is simple on Mac. . You no longer have to rely on QuickTime in order to record screens.

Social engineering and phishing: Ransomware’s best friends

Other companies have been lucky in their dealings with cloud-based malware, but barely. According to KrebsonSecurity, for instance, a company called Children in Film recently discovered the importance of having backups of all data. The company’s entire operations runs off of cloud environments, so when an unwitting employee opened an unknown email attachment, the whole organization was restricted access to its data and applications.

“Someone in my office was logged into Outlook and opened up invoice attachment and BAM!, within 30 minutes, every single file on our Q drive had ‘vvv’ added as file extensions,” said Toni Casala, a representative for Children in Film.

Thankfully, the cloud provider had been performing daily backups of the firm’s files, but it still took the company almost a week to restore all of them. Another point of note was that Children in Film had just ceased operations for the calendar year, so the disruption wasn’t as massive as it could have been – not to mention there was a weakness in the malware that allowed security firms to retrieve the data without Children in Film ever paying the actual ransom.

Casala’s experience isn’t universal. Children in Film got lucky – the company had several fortunate things happen that wouldn’t normally take place in a situation like this. In most circumstances, the ransom would have to be paid, and in the worst situations, critical downtime would take place during peak business season. It’s for this reason that companies have to consider their options as far as cloud security solutions are concerned.

Cloud security solutions are necessary

Companies have traditionally been hesitant to invest in cloud-based tools due to the common idea that the cloud is less secure than on-premises infrastructure. However, this is nothing more than a misconception – cloud environments provided by a dedicated cloud partner are just as secure, it not more so, than your on-premises solutions. In fact, MarketsandMarkets found that by 2019, the cloud security market will be worth a whopping $8.71 billion – meaning companies are investing ever more in tools to make their environments more protected. Not to mention that since cloud providers are responsible solely for their main product (the cloud), they can focus more of their budgetary resources on creating as safe an environment as possible for their customers.

This doesn’t mean that organizations shouldn’t be careful when moving their data and applications to the cloud. As demonstrated by the Cerber attacks and the situation experienced by Children in Film, backing up data and ensuring cloud infrastructure is as secure as possible is critical in order to prevent any sort of intrusion. Keeping data safe is paramount, because targeted attacks can come in many forms.

Ransomware infections have spread beyond traditional platforms and it’s important to ensure protection, especially within your cloud environments.