Imagine if everything on your computer was “kidnapped” — including all of your precious family photos and important personal documents.
And the only way you could access any of it again was if you paid a lot of money — or bitcoins — to a hacker. Even if you pay, there’s no guarantee you’ll get your stuff back.
Sounds like something out of a movie, right? Unfortunately, it’s happening in real life. It’s called ransomware. You might’ve heard news stories about ransomware attacks on hospitals, universities, and other large organizations, too.
Hackers do it by encrypting files on your computer — and files you’ve saved to connected hard drives or any shared folders. Once the files are encrypted you won’t be able to open them without the encryption key — which you can get only if you pay the amount hackers demand. That could be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Be sure to check out this video on protecting your computer from malware: