If you’re hit with a ransomware attack, you’re facing an unpleasant choice: Pay the ransom to restore your files, contact a professional ransomware recovery company, or lose important data forever. However, in the United States, paying the ransom may be...

Media preservation can be a tricky business. Due to age, humidity, or other factors, legacy formats like Sony U-Matic, Betacam, and other analog video cassettes can become warped, distorted, and unplayable. One well-known tape preservation method is baking tapes, which...

Degaussing is a data sanitization procedure that destroys data by applying powerful magnetic fields. Here’s how the process works.

No, magnets will not damage solid-state drives. However, changes in magnetic fields might cause data loss under certain circumstances. Strong magnetic fields can destroy data on hard disk drives (HDDs) and data tapes, for a simple reason: Those devices use...

Recently, we digitized ¾-inch Sony U-matic cartridges that had sat in storage for about four decades — with no considerations for humidity, heat, or other factors that could cause signal loss.  That project was largely successful, but it highlights the...

With help from Datarecovery.com, an award-winning filmmaker and television producer has digitized some of his earliest work — including a rare 1979 interview with Chris Frantz, then-drummer for the Talking Heads. Greg Crutcher has had a storied career, serving as...

ESXiArgs is ransomware that encrypts VMware ESXi virtual machines and demands payments via cryptocurrency. The attackers reveal the infection with a ransom message demanding payment. Here’s a typical example of a ransom: Security Alert!!!We hacked your company successfully All...

According to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), Russian hackers have used a new malware strain, “Somnia,” to disable information technology (IT) systems in Ukraine. While the government of Ukraine has not confirmed the success of the attack,...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the arrest of Mikhail Vasliev, 33, for suspected involvement in the global LockBit ransomware attacks that have targeted hundreds of organizations over the past two years. Vasliev, who is a Russian-Canadian citizen according...

LockBit was first identified in September 2019. At the time, it was known as ABCD ransomware due to its method of attack: The ransomware would encrypt files and change their file extensions to .abcd. Newer versions of LockBit change the...