Ordinarily, falling victim to a ransom plot means that you are the son or
daughter of some rich person and the only way to get out of it is by paying
tons of money or waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kurt Russell to come
and rescue. At least that's what TV would have us believe. These days, being
held for ransom can actually happen quite differently with your computer of
all things. I'm talking, of course, about ransomware, a particularly
diabolical type of malware, that is to say, bad software, that's been making
headlines recently. So, here's how it works. Once ransomware gets on your
computer, usually through an infected email attachment or the all too common
Trojan horse attack, it will lock your
computer or your data in some way, and demand payment in exchange for giving
control of your system back to you. Some of the simpler forms of ransomware will
simply try to fool you into thinking there's something wrong with your
computer and get you to pay money to fix it. A common tactic that we see in those
banner ads that tell you that you've been inexplicably infected by something.
Now, often times with those, you've probably got at least rudimentary
control over your system still. So, the only real issue is that you have to deal
with these constant popups until you find a way to get rid of the malware. A
much more irritating kind of ransomware will lock your computer entirely and
keep you from logging into your operating system unless you cough up the
money. Many of these varieties of ransomware will display a threatening
message purporting to be from the FBI or some other super hardcore police agency
saying that your computer was used for something highly illegal, but you can
get your computer back and avoid doing hard time just by paying a few hundred.
Sounds absurd, right? But people have fallen victim to this and even if you
recognize the scam immediately, those ones can be a real pain to remove. Worst
of all is the ransomware that not only locks your system but also encrypts your
files and won't provide you with the keys to decrypt them unless you pay up.
The most notable of these being crypto locker, although many other variants
have popped up since that one first made the news back in 2013. Some other issues
with these. Unsurprisingly, cyber criminals aren't exactly the most
trustworthy folks, and many people have reported not getting their files back,
even after paying the ransom. And on top of that, there are some kinds of
ransomware that don't even ask permission. They just hit your Bitcoin
wallet and take the money without even giving you a chance to say, "Well, hold
on. Let me think about whether this data is actually worth paying for." So then,
how can you rescue your computer and protect your cash if you get infected?
Many of the non- enrypting types of ransomware can be removed by booting
into safe mode and running an up-to-date anti-malware tool or if that fails
downloading a bootable removal tool to a flash drive and running that. However,
if you've been hit by an encrypting variety of ransomware, you're not going
to want to hear this, but you're probably out of luck as most of these
use a very strong encryption algorithms. In fact, the FBI, the real one, has
advised people to just pay these ransoms in the past. So, if you don't like the
idea of your money going to online criminals, back up your data somewhere,
preferably offline. And remember, please, to explain to your grandparents
what a banner ad is if they call you in a panic over having 50 viruses on their
all-in-one PC. Speaking of getting educated, with alinda.com membership,
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I'll see you guys next time. Oh, yeah.