TeslaCrypt ransomware now impossible to crack, researchers say

Ramsomware has become a large presence on the net. The Locky virus is another example of the new ransomware that has no way to circumvent the encryption. If you want to effectively defend against this, your best defense is to have a back up of your OS & files. Your Anti Virus might stop the ransomware, but there's also a chance it won't.

Windows has a built in program to make a system image. Or you can use another program of your choice. But not having a back up when this strikes means either loosing your files or paying up & hoping that you do receive the decryption key. Be smart & make a back up before it happens to your PC/Laptop.

Please note that for your back up to have the best protection, it should be kept on an external HDD that is not normally connected to the computer at all times. The newer variants of this ransomware will seek out any/all disks, back ups & corrupt them.

The latest version of the TeslaCrypt ransomware has tidied up a weakness in previous versions that in some cases allowed victims to recover their files without paying a ransom.

Cisco’s Talos research group found that TeslaCrypt 3.0.1 has improved its implementation of a cryptographic algorithm making it impossible now to decrypt files.

“We can not say it loud and often enough, ransomware has become the black plague of the internet,” wrote Andrea Allievi and Holger Unterbrink, both security researchers with Cisco, in a blog post on Wednesday. “The adversaries are modifying and improving it in every version.”

Weaknesses in versions of TeslaCrypt allowed researchers to create tools including TeslaCrack, Tesladecrypt and TeslaDecoder for people to decrypt their files without paying a ransom.

That encryption weakness has now been closed.

TeslaCrypt ransomware now impossible to crack, researchers say | PCWorld

Free tools for making backups of your system.

Five free tools for managing partitions - TechRepublic

A system image is an exact copy of a drive or partition which can be used to restore your PC to the state it was in at the time the image was made. By default, a system image only includes the drives that Windows requires to run, including Windows 10 itself, your system settings, programs, and files. You may also include any other drive in the image if you wish. When you restore your computer from a system image it is a complete restoration, you cannot choose individual items to restore and all of your current programs, system settings, and files are replaced with the contents of the system image.

This tutorial will show you how to create a system image backup in Windows 10 to be able to use to restore the contents of your computer back to the state it was in when the system image was created if your hard drive fails or your computer ever encounters problems.

System Image - Create in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Excellent post Dr. Borg. Now, if we could just get people to do the backups, *before* they get hit...instead of learning a hard lesson.

altae said:

Well I'm done telling people to backup their data. No matter what you say they are not going to do it. I just read a story on some news page about a German town that actually paid the ransom to unlock the data on their network because they had no backup

I read that too....I couldn't believe it. It was a hospital or some gov office. Unbelievable, that places like that don't take proper actions to guard/back up their data

And no matter how long it takes to make an image, it's well worth the time it took.

simrick said:

Excellent post Dr. Borg. Now, if we could just get people to do the backups, *before* they get hit...instead of learning a hard lesson.

Yepperz, that's the trick, getting them to do it BEFORE disaster strikes.

The new ransomware encrypts connected storage places like an external HDD as well as cloud backups.
Anyway, since ransomware is so easy to avoid, I do not even consider it as a threat, just as a scareware.

OldMike65 said:

Only if you leave your External drive ON !!! Which you should not.....make your image backup to external drive, turn off....nothing can access that external drive then :)

Exactly. As I mentioned above, keep your backups on a drive that you only use for that purpose. Anytime it's not being used to make a back up, disconnect it.

BTW, something I've been noticing, it's getting harder to find a drive with an off/on switch. I have a couple that have that feature, but the last couple I found didn't have that option, they were on all the time. I fixed that on one of them by putting my own off/on switch in the middle of the power cord. I'll get to the other one soon enough. But still, kind of surprised they went that way. Of course the newer ones don't need an external power cord, they run straight off the USB connect.