14 DAY TRIAL // Ransomware is such a common type of computer infection nowadays that people who dealt with it once will forever remember the ordeal they had to go through before regaining full access to their computers.
While for most years ransomware has been only a nuisance, more recently, the rise of ransomware that cryptographically encrypts your files has moved ransomware at the top of today's most dangerous computer viruses.
Whereas in the past a simple OS reinstall would have been enough to clean out the ransomware infection, nowadays, you have to scout the Internet for various file decryption tools provided by various antivirus makers and cyber-security vendors to be able to fully recoup your data.
Unfortunately, not all of the times you'll be able to find such tools, so you are eventually faced with two scenarios. Leave the encryption files be and start over from scratch, or pay the ransom and hope the criminals will free up your precious data.
FBI: We often advise people just to pay the ransom
Speaking at the Cyber Security Summit that took place last week in Boston, Joseph Bonavolonta, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cyber and Counterintelligence Program, revealed that the FBI started advising organizations to pay up ransoms if they ever face such problems.
The thinking behind this recommendation is that cyber-crooks will not want to ruin a lucrative business by cheating their victims, and will decrypt files after ransoms are paid, in the hope of reinfecting victims, or the word spreading among users that "paying the ransom helps."
By recommending organizations to pay the ransom, the FBI hopes that companies and users will eventually learn their lesson and start employing better self-protection measures when navigating the Web.
While this advice might seem preposterous to some, it may yield better results when it comes to overall security awareness and security training.
