Canadian university buckles and pays $20k in bitcoin to hackers

[Assmaster2000]

Best way is to backup using tapes, which few organizations do in the age of the cloud.

Is that still a thing? Why would a tape be better than ...oh, any other format?

[greyhawk]

Best way is to backup using tapes, which few organizations do in the age of the cloud.

Is that still a thing? Why would a tape be better than ...oh, any other format?

Yes tapes are still a thing because they are the cheapest per GB at $0.01/GB and have lower error rates than drives and generally last longer. http://www.overlandstorage.com/blog/?p=323

Main reason is some tapes cannot be overwritten, so its not possible for ransomware to encrypt your backups. That happens quite a lot http://www.sbsfaq.com/?p=4046

[patronis]

Everyone should just use clouds and this would never happen. Just back up everything on the cloud and be worry free.

[RealBitcoin]

This is negative publicity for the university.

Now who will enroll in their IT classes after we clearly see that their IT department is incompetent?

Can't they just backup their data and have proper security measures?... you know, this is a university after all with PHD IT experts.

Well I guess I wont become an IT student there

[Cuntabula]

Well I guess I wont become an IT student there

Don't want to impinge on your promising fry cook career?