Considering a start-up entrepreneur, the day on which he starts his venture is a day to rejoice himself to acquire more energy to travel ahead in the roller coaster vigorously. This must have been the reason why most of the time entrepreneurs/founders used to find some time to celebrate even in the middle of concern. As a start-up entrepreneur, I also recommend some smash in between the work as it will keep the team energized and refreshed throughout.

We had also some plans for September 20th at InCyder , yes the same last Wednesday. It was our 4th birthday on September 20th. But unfortunately ‘the day’ kept some disaster for us. We have found something malignant in some of the PCs as well as in the server on 18th itself. Some of the client projects pulled down automatically. Some of the machines started behaving indifferently. We were literally shocked on realizing that the machines were vulnerable to Wannacry/DoublePulsar attack. I haven’t had any idea about ‘Wannacry’ other than what I read from Newspapers few months ago. I was on some ‘Hang’ stage for some time.

As I used to do in my tough times I called some fellow entrepreneurs, but most of them were helpless. Some advised me to have a thorough check on all the machines and related network devices. But most of them were helpless to suggest me the prevention plans to safe guard my data.

Mr. Robin, one of my pillar supports in the network shared me one contact who is an expert in the area. But my bad luck, he was unreachable at the moment.

Mr. Rajiv, from Waum team connected me to Mr. Sreenath. Thank you Rajiv. You have directed me to the right person for the situation which would have been an even bigger catastrophe if we had taken more time to reach an apt person.
At the outset I must tell Mr. Sreenath, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have saved a life . You have helped me in a situation where I was literally fainted. I was speaking to Sreenath for the first time, and I missed showing the usual gestures to a newly met person in that tensed situation. May be I didn’t thank him well. But none of them made Sreenath hesitant to help me.
My fellow entrepreneurs, below I am writing few of the points I have learned from the situation. It may be helpful to prevent any such uncertainties due to vulnerabilities like DoublePulsar, etc. If you don’t mind keep in touch with Mr. Sreenath he can tell you more on this Cyber security .

1. If you prefer windows based operating system use Windows 10, which has all the patches inbuilt to prevent vulnerabilities like Wannacry.
2. Secure your modem/router. Do whatever possible to secure the network devices, follow any of the guidelines available online for this.
3. Use an updated version of any of the best rated antivirus software in all your machines. Keep it updated always.
4. Implement a better backup mechanism, either in the server level or in the local level. Choice is yours.  We must backup both the codes as well as DB in a timely manner.
5. If you are not using any code control system, implement some git, svn or something, this will work itself as a backup mechanism for the code.

Thought of sharing my experience with the new situation, which may be helpful to someone at some time.  As Sreenath told me before disconnecting the call,

It is startup ecosystem, Help each other and Grow together.

The energy, the passion and the spirit of the ecosystem all lies in people like Sreenath. Thank you Sreenath, hoping to meet you in person soon.

Sharing a link too, that might be helpful.