Hacking

With all the recent shenanigans about political hacking of e-mails and servers, and the recent introduction of the UK's rather strong surveillance law, it is possible to forget that commercial entities are also the subject of continual cyberattack.

News today is that the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia is reporting the re-emergence of a virus that caused massive problems at Saudi Aramco in 2012.  This created a large amount of damage, and the rest of the world paid more for its hard drives as a result (a spike in demand leading to a spike in prices).  For the first time that I know of a second country and oil company has been identified as suffering in that first attack, and that fits with what I have heard.

Meanwhile, ransomware is becoming more prevalent with even public authorities having to pay up to get their data back.

So, a reminder.  Back up your hard drives.  Do it now.  Go on.  Have a coffee and do a backup.  Then detach that backup from your system and do another.  You might thank me later.