I despise all forms of bullying. Perhaps the one I hate most of all is where the bully takes a personal item, snatching it from you, and refuses to give it back. It’s dangled right in front of you, but held just out of reach. You’ll only get it back after doing whatever the bully wants.
Ransomware is an on-line form of the bully’s game of keep-away. Here, the bully gets on your computer and takes your personal files -words documents, photos, financial information, all the things you care about. Those files are still on your computer, dangling in from of you, but they are encrypted now, useless to you. In order to get them unencrypted, you’ll need to pay the bully 300-500 dollars.
This is the fastest growing crime on the Internet. It grew by 4500% in 2014, and shows no signs of stopping, its just too profitable for the bullies. How do you stop the bullies? There are five things that will make a tremendous difference.
used with permission from Norton by Symantec
By Kevin Haley, Director, Symantec Security Response