Recently a large number of UFV staff have received email messages from various senders submitting a “Resume”. Included with the message is an attachment in the form of a .zip file.
Several employees have opened the attachment and have had files on their local hard drive, network, and departmental drives infected with a virus known as crypto-malware. The virus encrypts the files rendering them unusable until a “ransom” is paid for a decryption key.
In order to avoid the ransom payments, IT Services has had to erase gigabytes of infected directories and restore them from back-up. The monitoring, investigation, and mitigation have used considerable resources and inconvenienced all involved.
It is extremely important that any unsolicited email with attachments be treated with utmost suspicion and deleted immediately. Do not open an email attachment unless it is from a known source and was expected.
We appreciate your help in keeping our IT systems safe.
Christopher Jones
IT Security Analyst