IT Security Advice

IT Security Advice

On this page you will find:

• West Midlands Cyber Crime Unit
• Ransomware Advice
• Scam Emails

Cyber Security

The West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit are releasing video’s on their YouTube Channel raising awareness of National Cyber Security Centre approved Cyber Essentials controls. 

Cyber Essentials is a simple but effective, Government-backed scheme that will help you to protect your organisation, whatever its size, against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks. Find out more information on getting Cyber Essentials certified visit.

Tune in every Friday for more helpful tips – Youtube channel
Or search for – WM Regional Cyber Crime Unit YouTube Channel 

YouTube content schedule

Offer of free cyber services that are available to schools, charities, public and private sector businesses and organisations both big and small in the West Midlands region

Ransomware Advice

In recent years, personal use of computers and the internet has exploded and, along with this massive growth, cybercriminals have emerged to feed off this burgeoning market, targeting innocent users with a wide range of malware. The vast majority of these threats are aimed at directly or indirectly making money from the victims. Today, ransomware has emerged as one of the most troublesome malware categories of our time. These threats target home users, businesses, and organisations alike.

What is ransomware?

A Ransomware infection is a program that ransoms the data or functionality of your computer until you perform an action. This action is typically to pay a ransom in the form of Bitcoins or another payment method. When a computer is infected with ransomware the effects can be either a nuisance or devastating depending on what the infection does. For example, many ransomware just lock you out of your computer, which can easily be fixed with the right tools. Other ransomware, such as Crypto Ransomware, are much more devastating as they will actually encrypt the data on your computer and require you to pay a ransom in order to decrypt your files.

Effects of a ransomware infection include:

• Make it so that you cannot execute programs other than ones required to pay the ransom.
• Terminate any non-essential programs that may be running.
• Encrypt your data so that you can no longer access it or open it with programs.
• Remove your ability to browse the Internet other than to locations that will allow you to pay the ransom

Though the loss of your data and computer can be devastating, sending the ransom could be even more so. Depending on how the criminals want you to pay the ransom could put you at risk for Identity Theft as the information you send may contain personal information. Therefore, we suggest that you never pay a ransom unless it is absolutely necessary for data recovery. For screen lockers you should never pay a ransom as there are always solutions to remove these infections without
paying anything.

Last, but not least, it is important to remember that paying the ransom only continues to fuel the release of new variants of these types of programs.

You can find out more about Ransomware below:

Scam Emails

There are many email scams in regular circulation, often purporting to come from
genuine organisations such as banks, government departments and the post office

• Inland Revenue to say you are due a tax refund
• Post Office to say you have a parcel
• Banks and building societies asking you to verify your account
• Justice.gov.uk to say your vehicle is parked illegally
• Scotcourts.gov.uk to say you are due in court

The list is endless.

The purpose of such emails is to fool you into giving out personal financial
information, or to compromise your computer by introducing nasty software.

The first thing to be aware of is that the sender’s address will have been spoofed to
make it look as though the email has come from a legitimate organisation. Such
organisations would never contact you in this way.

No bank or building society would ever ask you for information such as usernames,
passwords, credit card numbers, account numbers, etc. Any email asking you to
‘verify your account’, ‘confirm your sign in details’, or using a similar form of words, is
almost certainly a scam, even if it appears to come from your own bank.

For your own protection

• Always log on to your own bank’s website directly by typing the web address directly into your browser and never via a link in an email
  
• Check out what your bank has to say in their section on security; most of the major banks and financial institutions have very useful security information and guidelines on their websites, and they tell you what to look for in a genuine communication.
  
• If you find you have received an email which looks unusual in any way at all, or comes from a source that you are not expecting or have never had dealings with before, or that is similar to those mentioned above, do be wary.