Malware, viruses, worms and trojans. These should all be familiar terms to anyone who owns a computer or who has owned a computer in past. In fact, if you’ve ever owned a computer, you’ve likely had to deal with one of them before or had one without knowing. Viruses are harmful programs that are meant to change your computer in some way. While the effects vary from virus to virus, they usually include the changing, deleting, or corruption of important files. To the average user, a virus could be a minor annoyance. But up until now, many have ignored the real and possible danger of viruses going to attack more than just an average user.

This is where ransomware comes into play. Ransomware is actually an old technique that was widespread in the early days of computers. What ransomware does is different from other malware. Like I previously mentioned, normal viruses only mess with groups of files. Ransomware encodes all the computers files and makes them inaccessible. The only way to regain your files is to pay the creators. Nowadays, the scammers are paid through bitcoin, which is an online and untraceable way to transfer money.

So why should you care? Ransomware doesn’t usually target average computer users. They target businesses and hospitals, which affects everyone. Aida Said, a Best Buy employee recalls her store in Dearborn being hit with Ransomware recently. “Ransomware sounds like something that isn’t as big as a threat as it was in the 90’s but the fact of the matter is that these attacks target larger soms of money. They go for hospitals and businesses who need their data more than a regular P.C user. When we were hit, we had to follow protocols and unplug all of the customers devices in case of information leaks”.

Even if you haven’t heard of all the commotion going on with businesses or hospitals, you might have heard of ransomware being used to steal Hollywood movies. Examples of this include the newest installment to the Pirates of the Carrabine. The hackers would take the files and slowly release the movie. Each day that the companies didn’t pay, they would release 30 more minutes of it. Even though this resulted in the companies that worked on the movie losing money, it was a good decision. If they were to give into the demands, other hackers would be inspired and try to do the same thing, seeing as it worked.

Ransomware effects all of us in one way or another. Whether it be through hospitals, businesses, or movies, we were all recently hit in this new and odd wave of ransomware attacks. The best advice on how to deal with the ware is to not give in. Paying would only mean helping and supporting the hacker to do more damage to others. Unless it’s a life or death situation, like hospital staff and patients were placed in, there is no reason to pay the ransom.