How-To: Microsoft Outlook

Locky Virus – The Real Threat

 What is Locky?

Locky is one of the newest biggest threats to a computer that your average person is going to encounter. This virus attacks the files on your computer that have a file type that can be anything ranging from Documents to Videos to Photos. What it does is locks the file and makes them unusable without a decryption key that you have to pay for of course.

This is known as “Ransomware” in the tech industry and it can be very difficult to recover from if you are not properly prepared with backups and proper anti-virus software.

This particular attack tends to almost always come in the form of an email that looks like it could be safe with a attachment that has the ending .zip. You will be prompted to open the .zip and see a document that when opened looks like a bunch of gobbled up letters/numbers and it will ask you to enable macros on your word program to be legible.

What you don’t see is it using that “macro” ability to install in the back ground and lock out all your files and giving it unrestricted access to your computer as well as any external drives or network locations you have the ability to save or write to. Once it has infected your machine you really only have 2 options. Pay them and pray that they give you the program to remove the encryptions or recover from a backup solution.

Virus prevention is a constant fight and will always be something that we as both users and technicians have to be vigilant for and work on learning about and how to prevent the new threat.

Tips

• Always check the sender of an email.  Remember if the email is coming from a bank, shipping company, online shopping site, or other normal vendors confirm they are the real sender prior to following any link or opening attachments.  Visit the vendor’s website for clarification and/or to report any fraudulent emails.
• Review the content of email.  If it contains links, hover over the link to determine if it goes to the same website the email is from; if it’s from someone you know, but you were not expecting an attachment, contact that person; if it only contains a link and no other content, delete it.  Do not open Zip files if you were not expecting them.  For example, faxes come in the form of a PDF, not zipped.
• Keep your computer up to date with patches
• Keep your antivirus software updated
• Always backup your data!!  Invest in Carbonite or some other online backup solution.  If you are running Windows 7 or 10, setup a schedule backup routine.
• Consider another layer of protection with Malwarebytes.  It’s effective and reasonable.

Helpful Links:

• Carbonite: Get Carbonite Now!
• Malwarebytes:  www.malwarebytes.org

Outlook 2010: Sending As PDF

This method allows you to attach a Word document and have Adobe convert it to a PDF directly from Outlook.

Launch Outlook, if necessary.

• Start a new email message
• Compose your message

To attach a word document without converting it to a PDF first:

• Click on the Adobe PDF Ribbon
• Click Attach as Adobe PDF
• Choose the document from Worldox.
  You can only choose one document at a time.
  You will see a dialog box pop up.
• Click Save
  This will save the PDF to your local computer and immediately attach it to your email message.

Remember, the larger the file, the longer it takes to convert to a PDF.
Please be patient.

• Repeat as necessary to attach all of the necessary PDFs.
• Click Send when you are ready to send your attached PDFs.

If you would like a shortcut button for “Attaching as Adobe PDF” on your Quick Access Toolbar, please contact Tappan Solutions for assistance.