You wouldn’t open the door to a stranger (day or night), would you? My guess is that at least 95 out of 100 people wouldn’t do that. So those 95 we don’t need to worry about as much as the 5 who would blindly open the door to anyone. Chances are, those same 5 are more likely to download unknown software on their computers w/out checking the source. Or opening an email from someone unknown, or have never done business with. Which is just as bad for your safety in the long run as opening the door to a stranger in the short haul.

Once the data thief has what’s needed directly from your computer, your bank account(s) & investments can be wiped clean in minutes. Then to make matters worse, they can either open lines of credit in your name, or sell the data to someone else who would, for varying prices. Someone with a higher credit score is worth a lot more on the black market than one with lots of bad credit (the only ‘good’ thing about having the latter), and these thieves knows how to access these bases, often from the hacking of your computer, any data found & stolen.

So while most folks knows to secure their computers, create full drive images often (though with this one, still not enough), and keep critical data, the kind that can be used against you as described above, off of the ‘C’ or OS drive & preferably onto one or more detached external drives (a mere Data drive or partition is only for short term storage of important items), there’s many that doesn’t realize that the old way of ‘internal backups’ doesn’t apply today. Unfortunately, the bad guys has forced us (myself included) to abandon this practice when the ‘crypto’ threats emerged. Even your Google & OneDrive folders are vulnerable, so keep an up to date hard copy of these weekly at a minimum on an external.

That’s where EAM or EIS can be a huge help for the 5 who doesn’t know these things for pennies per day. Since most folks has more than one computer in the home, then one can save more with a value bundle for 3 or 5 PC’s (it costs less by buying in bulk).

Be sure also to read the Emsisoft Blog, I have bookmarked countless pages, every one that shows, one can learn a lot of the basics needed to protect one’s self. I can attest that I’ve also learned a lot from the Emsisoft Blog posts & look forward to every one.

Even if you’re doing ‘all of the good things’, download the free Emsisoft Emergency Kit, unzip to a folder in your Documents, update & run a quick Malware scan, and even if nothing is found, update & run a Custom Scan. SSD’s are the craze of today, and even on a mid powered computer, the scan will take less than 15 minutes, unless there’s several HDD’s packed with items from since the turn of the Millennium.;-) Then it’ll take longer, just be sure in Power Settings not to allow Sleep for this run. If anything is found…..anything, give EAM or EIS a shot for 30 days on the dime of Emsisoft. No nagware, maybe one to let you know that your Trial is about to expire, but no 3rd party junk.

Have a safe day, and to the 5, stop trusting everyone blindly (even on & especially the Internet), you don’t have a ‘lost’ FedEx package in South America (unless living there) & not everyone is your friend, even if they pose as such.;-)

Cat