How to protect your data from system failure or ransomware

MOAR cat videos, less stress

Singaporeans
are a technology-savvy bunch. With a population of approximately 5.74-million,
we have an internet penetration of 82% and spend more than 7 hours per day on
the internet. Even though the number of people browsing the internet via mobile
devices has been steadily on the rise, the computer is still the number 1
choice for Singaporeans, with 91% of us using it every day.

For
most of us, our computers are used for surfing the internet, emails,
assignments and cat videos on Youtube. It is also a depository of photos of
loved ones, videos taken during a holiday, financial records and medical documents.
While some are easily replaceable than others, the sudden loss of these data
can be a traumatic experience for anyone.

In a
recent survey conducted globally with more than 10,000 respondents, users
responded that they would pay up to about S$500 to recover their data, in the
event of a hardware failure. However, when pushed further, the prices that the
respondents are willing to pay continued to rise, venturing into the S$1,000
mark and then some. While some companies can offer to recover your data at a
cost, your data can never be fully recovered, and there’s always the fear of
your data and financial documents abused by those you task to recover your
data.

With
the rise of ransomware, things are a lot more complicated. Hackers effectively
lock your computer and tells you to pay the ransom, in order to gain access to
your computer. Payment is usually in the form of the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
You can choose to pay the ransom, but there is never any guarantee that the
hackers will unlock your computer, or don’t hack you again in the future.

The
recent Petya / NotPetya virus is even more dangerous. It masquerades as a
ransomware, but proceeds to wipe your entire storage drive clean. Even if you
eventually manage to gain access to your hard drive, everything is lost
forever.

So
damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

But
not all is lost, because if you develop the habit of backing up your data
regularly, you can always recover the information via your external hard disk drive,
or from cloud storage. In the case of hardware failure, you can either choose
to repair the faulty component, or purchase a new computer. These options can
range anywhere between S$500 for a new motherboard for a laptop, to over
S$2,000 for a brand new computer. In either case you would have to reinstall
your operating system, reconfigure your operating system settings from scratch,
connect to the Internet, install your drivers and anti-virus software, and then
begin to restore your files from your backup.

If
this entire process sounds needlessly complicated and exhausting, it’s because
it is. You would be restoring years
of compounded data and files that could potentially take hours or even days to
restore, depending on your total file size, or in the case of restoring from
cloud, bandwidth connection.

To
save yourself from the long-drawn misery, you could invest in a full-image
backup solution, such as the Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation. A
full-image backup means that the Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation copies
your entire operating system, including your settings, preferences, drivers,
files, folders and data. It even copies your entire operating system and, yes,
even your wallpaper.

If
you’ve installed Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation on your computer prior
to a hardware failure, you can simply install and run it from your repaired or
new computer, and let it take care of the rest. The Acronis True Image 2017 New
Generation will not only restore your data, but will also actively update your
system drivers for compatibility, especially crucial if you purchased a new
computer. Once restored, it’ll work and look exactly the same as your previous
computer.

We ran
a simulated test with the following specifications and environment:

The
above test clearly shows that using Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation
significantly reduces the restoration time, and lets you get back on with your
life. Think of it as an insurance policy: You may never see the tangible
benefits when everything is peachy, but you will be thankful when things do
eventually go kaput.

So at
least we’ve got the hardware failure bit out of the way. What about ransomware?

The
premium edition of the Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation features the new
Acronis Active Protection™, a
solution that actively monitors and blocks ransomware from the start of the
attack.

Unlike
traditional anti-virus, Acronis uses heuristics instead of signatures to seek
out malicious processes that are an early sign of a ransomware attack.

What’s
the difference between signature-based detection and heuristics-based
detection? Think of signature-based detection as your current job title, and
that everyone only knows you from your job title. That’s similar to how
signature-based detection works. It recognizes only one part of the virus and
uses that signature to block and eliminate the virus.

Heuristics-based
detection can be likened to people knowing your entire life, leading up to your
current job title. Heuristics looks at the entire process of the attack, from
the processes that start the attack. The moment it realizes that an unusual behavior,
Acronis Active Protection will block the process, and provide you with a
notification, asking you if you initiated it or not. If you did not, it is
flagged as an attempted ransomware attack, Acronis True Image 2017 New
Generation would block the ransomware and immediately restore your files in seconds.

That’s
right. Seconds. Take for example a
Word document that measures only 20kb. Acronis Active Protection can restore
the Word file from the Windows cache in less
than a second. That 20mb presentation you’ve been working on got hit by
ransomware? Acronis Active Protection will restore than in less than a minute. You get the picture.

The
Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation Premium subscription can be purchased at
http://www.acronis.com/en-sg/personal/buy-backup for a
limited time offer only of S$56.00 for 1 computer, and S$94.00 for three
computers.