Prashant Lakhlani

Prashant Lakhlani

My Weekly Journal - 05

5 minute read

My weekly journal is series of blog posts where I share stories about my professional and personal work. This is my weekly Journal 05, Feb 14, 2021, and in this post, I am going to share with you about:

  1. Fair Ransomeware
  2. OKR (Objective and key results) methodology of planning
  3. Recruiting interns for my team
  4. Updating my company website
  5. My weekend
  6. Articles

Fair Ransomeware

One of my machines was exposed to the internet over RDP and was attacked with Fair Ransomeware. Thankfully, due to our secure work practices, I didn’t lose any work data. I lost some of my data that I might find in the old backup.

Here is what I recommend if you are exposing your machine through RDP:

  1. Randomize ports - Do not use 389 or 3389 or 33890 ports which are obvious and easy guesses. Randomize the port while using RDP over the internet and keep changing the port number.
  2. Allowed IP Ranges - Do not use * in allowed IP range who can RDP. Use strictly secure IP ranges which covers your need. If you are unsure about it, learn it.
  3. Disable when not in use - Disable RDP port forwarding when not in use. Try to shut down or disable RDP when you know you are not going to use the machine.

There are heaps of software that can be used to prevent the attack. Create a clear strategy to prevent an attack.

I also had some email exchanges with the attacker and I tried to practice negotiation. They initially were offering USD 7,000 to decrypt my data which after a week came down to USD 3000, which is way too lower than the data recovery company changes you.

But I’m not going to pay hackers. As advised by so many people over the internet, I’ll not pay them. Lessons learned, it’s time to move on.

OKR (Objective and key results) methodology of planning

Some weeks ago, James Tononcelli introduced me to OKR - Methodology they use to define clear goals and concrete, specific, measurable, and actionable key results.

After reading through various articles and examples of OKR, I find it useful. I’m planning to start using OKR from March 2021 for a month to see how it helps me be more focused.

Recruiting interns for my team (Cont.)

I continued recruiting interns for my team. I took more interviews on Saturday and finalized 3 short-listed candidates who will probably join our team on 22nd Feb 2021.

Updating my company website

I’m working on updating my company website for some time now. The traffic is increasing to the site and our portfolio, our capabilities, and many of our blogs which are hitting good traffic aren’t cleaned up for some years now.

My weekend

This was one of the much-needed social weekends. We visited Ahmedabad Riverfront, had some cycling, and had fun with friends and kids. Visited some most amazing morning street food places and had lots of breakfast together.

Articles

I didn’t get so much time to read any books this week but I have gone through these articles during the week:

  1. Kuwait’s Oil Curse
  2. Understanding the Vehicle Scrappage Policy See you next week!

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