To prevent the attacks, the FBI advises: Maintain regular system backups. “Ghost ransomware victims whose backups were unaffected by the ransomware attack were often able to restore operations without needing to contact Ghost actors or pay a ransom,” the FBI alert noted.

FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency urge organizations to maintain backups and update software to prevent attacks by China-based "Ghost" hackers.

The FBI says backup your data today, describing attacks as dangerous and ongoing in newly published security warning.

The APT group has been operating under a variety of names, exploiting vulnerabilities in web apps, servers, and internet-exposed hardware at targets ranging from schools to governments.