The saga of the encrypted files goes on. As you should know, I teach leaders not only to plan their course to realize the vision that they have created, but also, to chart the course on how to get there. Part of charting that course is about having preventive and contingent plans in place for when life gets in the way. What I have learned from this saga is that those plans, both the ones to get me to Dornoch, Scotland (my vision), and the ones to keep me on track, are absolutely vital to moving forward on a day to day basis. Let me show you how this worked with the loss of all my data files.
A week into the saga, our IT expert let us know that the cheap ransom ($700) in byte coin had expired at 11:00 A.M. yesterday. There was no need to send the additional $253 as the price was now double. Why, you ask, was the initial $700 not enough? Well it seems that byte coin is like foreign exchange. What you actually buy depends on what the exchange will bear. It also appears that with the terrorist attack in Paris, no one is taking Euros for payment and the action on the byte coin exchange was intense. This drove the price up for each coin.
My husband and I decided that we would not continue to mess with this extortion other than to file a report with the FBI Internet Crimes Division. Based on this, we have a lot of decisions and plans to make. How will we recover from this? Here are some of the actions we are thinking about taking:
1) Do we get another server ($800) or do we place my husband’s documents on his computer and I do the same with mine? 2) Do we back-up in not only on an external hard drive also in the cloud and perhaps a third method? 3) If we decide not to use a server, are the towers we now have encrypted in such a way they cannot be used and will need to be scrubbed to be used? 4) If they are not useable, do we go with 2 laptops that are linked to the copier/printer and to the internet but not to each other? 5) How do we start again with files that we have to use, i.e., pleading paper template, case captions, etc for my husband? For me, it is my databases, my invoices, and other documents. 6) How do we get the phones up and working again? 7) If we go with the i-cloud quote we have from our telecommunications company, what do we do with the lease on the instruments we have as well as the computers who might now be toast? Must we payoff the leases to get out from under this expense? 8) I know there are more that are not coming to mind right now.
Find out in Part 2 what actions I took.
Something else I have learned as a business woman is to ask for what you want. If you loved what you just read, this content is not for free. As a form of payment, I am asking you to comment or share this on Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter.
Linda Patten, MBA, BSN, RN has over 30 years of experience leading women to success in building and achieving their dreams. She turns networking marketing women from product sellers to leaders of highly functioning teams. To learn more about her innovative programs, click on Contact Us.
