New York SBDC Research Network

From Bplans : One day in the fall of 2014, when I was still helping run a startup I co-founded (not the one I’m working for now), a client forwarded me an email he thought was suspicious. The email looked a lot like something my company would send. It linked to a website that looked a lot like ours that offered a great deal on the same service we provided. The site’s URL was almost identical to ours, too. Right away I had a bad feeling, but my first reaction was to tell myself it was just a competitor that had somehow gotten the email of a single client. Not a big deal. Then another client forwarded the same email. And another, and another. Pretty quickly it became clear that someone had gotten a list of our clients, and was sending them emails to try and trick them into paying the wrong company for our service. I was angry and worried. Who was doing this? How had they gotten our clients’ information? How much did they have? Ultimately, I think the way we reacted was mo...

How much is everything on your computer worth to you? About $300? The criminals behind a new malware program are betting on it. The Federal Trade Commission, the FBI and other federal agencies are warning consumers and businesses about “Cryptolocker,” a malware program that holds the files on your computer for ransom, and doesn’t allow you to access them until you pay up. Even then, there’s no guarantee. It’s essentially extortion, with all your personal documents, photos, and files at risk. Cryptolocker is spread mostly through email and “drive-by” downloads. The email might look like a routine message from a legitimate company, like a tracking notice from a shipping company. If you click on the hyperlink in the email, Cryptolocker encrypts everything on your hard drive and in your shared folders. When the job is done, you get a “ransom note” demanding payment via Bitcoin or some other anonymous payment method. The criminals behind this malware say they’ll give you the encryptio...