The day I put all my work at risk

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sakib36
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Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2024 3:08 am

The day I put all my work at risk

Post by sakib36 »

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As every day, our protagonist was getting ready for work in the morning. She picked up her backpack with her personal computer and went to the school where she taught. Inside her computer she kept a lot of important information , such as the content of the classes she was going to teach, the exams pending grading, her personal documents and photos from the last family vacation.

Their computer was a vital part of both their work and their daily life, yet it had no extra security measures built in , such as an antivirus.

It was almost the end of the school year, and the mother of the belgium phone number data Cibernauta family was preparing the final evaluation of her students, a project that they would have to present in front of the entire class. To do so, she asked them to bring the documentation and presentations on a USB memory stick , so she could save them on her computer, review them and finally, correct them.


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Work team connected from an open wifi point

On the day of the assignment, all of her students came to her desk with a USB device and, one by one, connected it to our protagonist's computer . Hours later that same day, she went to a cafe to relax and be able to correct all the work that had been handed in without distractions. She also took the opportunity to send some emails to other teachers. “Thank goodness the establishment had a Wi-Fi network to connect to!” she thought. Also, since she had finished everything she had pending before time, she decided to take a few minutes to do some online shopping. In fact, she is subscribed to several websites that send her emails periodically with offers and discounts from her favorite stores.

Days later, it was time to test her students. They were all in the classroom, ready to present their work and get the highest score. However, something was wrong with our protagonist's computer. To her surprise, the equipment was not working properly.

When he tried to open his students' files, a window appeared on the screen indicating that all his files had been encrypted . If he wanted to regain access to them, he had to pay a "ransom."

Reviewing one by one the mistakes that the protagonist made and that could have caused the infection:
He used his personal computer to perform work-related tasks, sharing storage spaces for private information with information related to his professional field.
You did not install an antivirus on your computer.
He connected his students' USB devices without scanning them first.
In addition, he stored his students' information unencrypted on his computer.
He connected to the cafe's Wi-Fi network and sent emails to his colleagues from a public network without knowing the network's security measures and without knowing who could be connected to that same network. From this same network, he also visited various websites, one of which could have downloaded the malware onto his computer.
You did not make backup copies of the information, which could have perhaps prevented you from losing information after the infection and encryption of files by the cybercriminal.
Computer infected by ransomware



In short, he did not take basic security measures into account and, when using his personal computer for professional use, he ended up infecting it with ransomware . Thus, all his files were encrypted, losing, among many other things, information related to his students' deliverables.



How could the situation be avoided?
Having a properly installed and updated antivirus , you could have scanned the emails you sent and received, the USB devices connected to your computer, thus avoiding a possible infection.
Not using personal equipment for work-related purposes . Alternative options if you have no other choice? Create a new user account on the computer with limited permissions so that you have one account to perform work tasks and another for personal use.
By not connecting to the cafe's public Wi-Fi network . Especially without using security measures such as a VPN. This would mean that your information would travel encrypted over the network without being compromised by third parties connected to that same network.
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