Cryptolocker Virus & Dropbox

So my wife's new computer got hit by the Cryptolocker ransomware. I guess I forgot to install antivirus and I think she got it from a sketchy email on her work account; although she says she didn't click on any links/attachments. After some previous issues with data backups and losing things, I convinced her to use Dropbox to backup all her files. Unfortunately, since Cryptolocker encrypts all documents with specific extensions, Dropbox just backed up all the encrypted files.

I found a help document that said to send their support staff a link to the event in case you need to undo said event and I've done so. I'm hoping Dropbox can undo it in a batch, otherwise it looks like you have to select each file and revert to the older version, which is a multistep process. And of course my wife has all her academic and teaching materials on there, which accounts for over 3000 docs.

So a) whoever made this is an a$$hole and b) be careful about using automatic cloud storage with this new breed of dickishness out there. Does anyone know if I need to wipe the computer and reinstall, or can I just remove Cryptolocker and the encrypted files and carry on? Anyone have any recommendations for a periodic, easy backup system for a laptop that would not be susceptible to this sort of attack?

fuzzyb wrote:

Anyone have any recommendations for a periodic, easy backup system for a laptop that would not be susceptible to this sort of attack?

It's important to realize that a sync folder (like Dropbox) is not a backup. It replicates what happens on the local system remotely, almost instantly. Dropbox does have some basic versioning capabilities, but in general, there isn't protection there that you should rely on as a backup.

What you want is an actual backup system, like CrashPlan, where you can say "restore this data to the point it was at this date". Snapshots, not sync. (And for very important data, don't rely on just one backup. Backup stuff periodically to an external hard drive or something, and rely on the cloud backup as an additional layer of redundancy)

Also, once you have a virus, you wipe and reinstall. You do not trust the system again until you have done so.

Everything Legion said.

CrashPlan and BackBlaze both are nice online backup systems that are relatively cheap and worth it 100%.