Ransomware is malware that holds your files as ‘data hostage’. The trojan encrypts your files and prevents your access to those data:

“…The idea of ransomware has existed in hacker circles for at least 20 years. Today, with the rise of anonymous international money transfer through services like PayPal, the idea has started to become a reality…”

link: Send $300, or Your Files Get It!

One available safeguard is to backup often and to have the backup files away from your main computer. If the malware cannot be removed, then at worse you may have to reinstall your backup. It may be costly in terms of time expenditure, but at least you will not be paying some creepy hacker a ransom to decrypt your own files.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster:  http://flyinghamster.com/

[tags]ransomware, malware, trojan, encryption, decryption, hackers, backup, security, ransom[/tags]