Ransomware less and less successful – Apparata

Fewer and fewer victims want to pay cybercriminals. Good news, because ransomware is becoming less and less successful as a result. However, the amounts demanded are many times higher.

Ransomware, a major computer risk

It happened to a friend of mine years ago. He visited a somewhat questionable website and accidentally downloaded ransomware. This is a form of malware that, once installed, encrypts your personal files. Your data will only be released if you transfer bitcoins to the criminal’s account. Another form of ransomware even takes the entire computer hostage.

For criminals this is a very interesting form of crime. The victim does all the work to transfer his money to the criminal’s account, without the criminal having to take any risk. Because once the cryptos have been laundered through all kinds of transactions, crypto accounts are anonymous.

Paying a ransom is never a good idea

Fortunately, this form of private crime is becoming less and less successful, and as a result, the number of ransomware attacks is declining. The reason is that fewer and fewer victims are willing to pay.

That also has a good reason. Because in more than one third of the cases, the data has not yet been saved, despite the fact that the victim has transferred the money. Criminals cannot be trusted. That is why it is wise, scary as it may sound, never to give in to ransomware.

More and more attacks on large companies

That is why criminals are now increasingly trying to attack large companies. Unlike individuals, who can only pay a few hundred to thousands at most, it is possible to earn millions from a successful hack on a large company. For example, cyber criminals managed to extort 4.4 million dollars from the American gas giant US Colonial Pipeline. The damage to the company was multiple, because the transport of gas came to a complete standstill for six days.

How do you prevent ransomware?

Although ransomware attacks are less common, they are still common. You can protect yourself in a few ways.

• First, never open contributions from emails from unknown senders. The giants Google and Microsoft offer an antivirus service in their webmail, but malicious email can still contain hyperlinks to malware.
• Second, install a good antivirus program. This protects both your computer and your web browser. Although it is good to know that antivirus programs are not perfect either.
• Thirdly, make a daily backup of your important data automatically, for example in the cloud. Has your computer been hacked? Then you can always easily retrieve your data.
• Fourth, you are only really safe if you are not connected to the internet. So turn off computers when you don’t need them. You cannot hack a computer that is off. Steal at most.