Backing-Up Your Data vs. Backing-Up Your PC

In my computer security classes, I tease my students that “Backups are good; restores are better.” The unfortunate fact of life is that computer hardware wears out and stops working. Software has bugs. Unfortunately, systems sometimes become infested with malware — so-called malicious software. A particularly ugly kind of attack, such as CryptoLocker, is called “Ransomware.” As Cybersecurity professionals, we call it crypto-viral extortion when a malware attack encrypts a user’s files and then demands payment to retrieve the key to restore the data.

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