MalwarePublished 31 Mar 2026

Why ransomware is now after your data — and how to protect your home storage | Kaspersky official blog

Source Kaspersky Security Blog

Description

Ransomware is increasingly targeting home backups on NAS, cloud storage, and external drives. Here’s how these attacks work, and how to keep your family photos and documents safe.

Impact

The impact of this ransomware threat on organizations is indirect but significant, primarily affecting home users who may work remotely or store sensitive personal and business data on home devices. Loss or encryption of personal backups can lead to permanent data loss, disruption of personal and professional activities, and financial loss due to ransom payments. For organizations, compromised home devices can serve as entry points for broader network attacks, especially in remote work scenarios. The encryption of authentication app backups can lock users out of critical accounts, compounding recovery challenges. The widespread nature of this threat increases the risk of large-scale data loss incidents among home users globally, potentially affecting workforce productivity and increasing support burdens for IT departments. The threat also pressures cloud service providers to maintain robust versioning and recovery features. Overall, the threat undermines data confidentiality, integrity, and availability for millions of users, with cascading effects on organizational security and privacy.

Defensive guidance

To mitigate this threat effectively, users and organizations should: 1) Implement the updated 3-2-1-1 backup strategy by maintaining an offline backup copy disconnected from the network during normal operation to prevent ransomware encryption. 2) Secure NAS devices by changing default passwords to strong, unique credentials and disabling any unnecessary remote access features, especially those exposed to the internet. 3) Keep all firmware and software on NAS devices, routers, and computers up to date with the latest security patches to close known vulnerabilities. 4) Use cloud backup services that provide version history retention of at least 30 days to enable recovery from encrypted files. 5) Avoid downloading software from untrusted sources and be vigilant against social engineering attacks that distribute ransomware disguised as popular applications. 6) Enable security features such as Kaspersky’s System Watcher or equivalent endpoint protection that can detect and roll back ransomware activity. 7) Regularly test backup integrity by restoring random files to ensure backups are functional and not corrupted. 8) Backup authentication app data securely, preferably using encrypted cloud-synced password managers to avoid lockout scenarios. 9) Educate home users about the risks of ransomware targeting personal backups and best security practices. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on the specific attack vectors and recovery challenges posed by ransomware on home storage solutions.

References

kaspersky.com/blog/preventing-ransomware-attacks-on-backups-of-home-users/55532/ (opens in a new tab)

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Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 31 Mar 2026, 13:38 UTC

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