The Most Important Step to Computer Security

If I could tell you one and only one thing related to computer security, what would it be?

I think you’ll find it’s not quite what you expect.

First, a bit of background….

A couple of years ago a friend approached me and said his computer had begun having problems. It was crashing randomly, and a number of the pictures in his folders wouldn’t display properly — or rather they wouldn’t display at all.

What I found was that there were two distinct problems with the machine:

First, his hard disk had developed a bad area, and any data stored in that bad area couldn’t be read accurately. This was very likely the cause of the random crashes. Fortunately this turned out to be easy to repair.

The second problem was more serious. His machine had malware — a virus. Specifically it had become infected with something called CryptoWall — ransomware.

You’ve probably heard the term by now, but just in case: ransomware is a form of malicious software that encrypts data on your machine and holds it for ransom. Once you pay the ransom — usually a few hundred dollars — you’re given the technology to decrypt the files. The important take-away about ransomware is that once it has encrypted your files there is no practical way to decrypt them without paying the ransom — which of course you don’t want to do, not only for the cost but because it encourages the ransomware authors to keep doing what they do.

The curious part about my friends situation is that while the signs of the infection were clear, he had never actually been asked for the ransom.

As it turns out the small sliver of good news here is that the ransomware had never completed encrypting all his files because of the problems with the hard disk.

The much more horrific pile of bad news is that the photographs that had been encrypted included one-of-a-kind pictures of a grand-daughter that had tragically passed away at a young age a year or so earlier.

To make matters worse — there was no backup. The encrypted photographs on the infected computer were the only copies of those photographs.

And they were lost forever.

My single most important security step, then, is this:

Back Up.

If there’s only one copy of something, then it’s not backed up.

Not only are backups the holy grail of protection against hardware failure and data loss, they’re also the most effective protection you can imagine against the damage that can be caused on your computer by malware.

There are many ways, many approaches, and many tools for backing up — and I realize that this is often a source of much confusion as to exactly what to do and how to back up.

But I can’t stress it enough. Figure it out. It’s that important.

I know some people tire of hearing me harp on it, but it really is the closest thing to a silver bullet when it comes to protecting your most precious information.

Backing up is the most important thing you can do.

You’d be shocked at how many people simply don’t.

This essay stems from notes for a talk on the subject. I talk about backing up a lot out at Ask Leo! where I also help people use technology more effectively, giving them the confidence to do more, be more, and explore more of the world that today’s technology makes available to us all.