Ransomware As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
979 words · ~4 min read
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Ordinarily, falling victim to a ransom plot means that you are the son or
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daughter of some rich person and the only way to get out of it is by paying
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tons of money or waiting for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Kurt Russell to come
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and rescue. At least that's what TV would have us believe. These days, being
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held for ransom can actually happen quite differently with your computer of
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all things. I'm talking, of course, about ransomware, a particularly
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diabolical type of malware, that is to say, bad software, that's been making
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headlines recently. So, here's how it works. Once ransomware gets on your
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computer, usually through an infected email attachment or the all too common
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Trojan horse attack, it will lock your
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computer or your data in some way, and demand payment in exchange for giving
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control of your system back to you. Some of the simpler forms of ransomware will
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simply try to fool you into thinking there's something wrong with your
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computer and get you to pay money to fix it. A common tactic that we see in those
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banner ads that tell you that you've been inexplicably infected by something.
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Now, often times with those, you've probably got at least rudimentary
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control over your system still. So, the only real issue is that you have to deal
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with these constant popups until you find a way to get rid of the malware. A
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much more irritating kind of ransomware will lock your computer entirely and
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keep you from logging into your operating system unless you cough up the
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money. Many of these varieties of ransomware will display a threatening
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message purporting to be from the FBI or some other super hardcore police agency
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saying that your computer was used for something highly illegal, but you can
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get your computer back and avoid doing hard time just by paying a few hundred.
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Sounds absurd, right? But people have fallen victim to this and even if you
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recognize the scam immediately, those ones can be a real pain to remove. Worst
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of all is the ransomware that not only locks your system but also encrypts your
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files and won't provide you with the keys to decrypt them unless you pay up.
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The most notable of these being crypto locker, although many other variants
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have popped up since that one first made the news back in 2013. Some other issues
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with these. Unsurprisingly, cyber criminals aren't exactly the most
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trustworthy folks, and many people have reported not getting their files back,
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even after paying the ransom. And on top of that, there are some kinds of
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ransomware that don't even ask permission. They just hit your Bitcoin
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wallet and take the money without even giving you a chance to say, "Well, hold
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on. Let me think about whether this data is actually worth paying for." So then,
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how can you rescue your computer and protect your cash if you get infected?
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Many of the non- enrypting types of ransomware can be removed by booting
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into safe mode and running an up-to-date anti-malware tool or if that fails
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downloading a bootable removal tool to a flash drive and running that. However,
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if you've been hit by an encrypting variety of ransomware, you're not going
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to want to hear this, but you're probably out of luck as most of these
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use a very strong encryption algorithms. In fact, the FBI, the real one, has
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advised people to just pay these ransoms in the past. So, if you don't like the
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idea of your money going to online criminals, back up your data somewhere,
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preferably offline. And remember, please, to explain to your grandparents
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what a banner ad is if they call you in a panic over having 50 viruses on their
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