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Geek started in 2004 with a focus on assisting business with a whole of enterprise approach. While we started helping small business, we have grown and are assisting business in the small and medium size space with a clear focus on businesses with 25-100 user space. In addition to Information Technology support and consulting, Geek is a market leader in the supply and support of Cloud services, Internet, telephony and photocopiers. Learn more at https://geekit.com.au/

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Geek founder and chairman Jon Paior

Australia has dodged a bullet from the weekend worldwide onslaught of the WannaCry / WannaCrypt ransomware attack – for the moment, reports Geek Pty Ltd, an Australian firm that specialises in recovering criminally encrypted data.

During the past three days, the WannaCry ransomware epidemic has hit more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries, using vulnerabilities in older versions of Microsoft Windows to lock users' files and demand ransom to release them.

Geek founder and chairman Jon Paior, whose company has helped many Australian businesses escape from cryptolocking ransom demands, said the WannaCry onslaught had abated because a programmer had identified a ‘kill switch’ within the virus. “While that has stopped this iteration of WannaCry from accelerating its attack, it will be back,” he said.

“It’s very likely that someone will reverse engineer this ransomware worm to generate an updated version which you can guarantee will not contain a ‘kill switch’.”

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Datto 2016 awards (l-r) Jon Paior, Rob Rae, Austin McChord, Giovanni Tirimacco and James Bergl W.JPGDatto 2016 awards (l-r) Jon Paior, Rob Rae, Austin McChord, Giovanni Tirimacco and James BerglAustralian IT services firm Geek Pty Ltd has won an international award for launching a “crypto crook” beating product in Australia which managed to save an Adelaide accounting firm $150,000 in just 15 minutes.

Geek founder and chairman Jon Paior said the business had been hit by a CryptoLocker scam, which was disturbingly common in Australia. “This client, a mid-tier Adelaide accounting firm, had bought the Datto backup appliance on our advice, hoping to never need it,” he said.

“However, their worst nightmare was realised when a staff member opened an AGL-branded scam email that generated a screen demanding thousands of dollars. All their files were encrypted, and totally inaccessible, including the main database. They were dead in the water.