Backup Your Files Now Because Ransomware is Becoming More Aggressive

The current highlights of the news, apart from terrorism and the upcoming presidential election in the USA, ransomware is in the spotlight as it looks to be one of the most dangerous and destructive malware threats this year.

Ransomware is rising to new levels where it is taking no prisoners through a process of encrypting files and holding an infected computer for ransom asking users to pay a fee to restore or decrypt their files. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) claimed that just this June more than #1 million a month was paid to cybercrooks who have wielded ransomware threats on computers around the world.

Everyone is vulnerable to ransomware threats. As it turns out, ransomware threats don't discriminate and have been found on home computers, business computers and even on the systems belonging to government agencies.

Ransomware authors and cybercrooks who are using the aggressive encryption ransomware type threats in the recent months are literally making away with millions of dollars. The ransom fees that computer users are asked to pay range from $50 to nearly $500 or over $1000 in some rare instances. Computer users are more prone now to pay the ransom fee just to decrypt their files and restore their system to normal operation so they can carry on with their life or business as usual.

No longer is the simple removal process of ransomware a viable alternative to restoring your files encrypted by the latest ransomware threats. While ransomware may be removed through the use of specialized antimalware tools, computer users are now opting to pay the ransom fee or suffer the dire consequences of restoring their computer from a system backup.

In the recent turn of events when it comes to the latest encryption ransomware threats, much of the malware is relentless on its path to destruction. Essentially, crypto-ransomware threats, such as CryptoLocker, CryptoWall, VirLock, and other similar malware, will give you only a few choices and now more than ever computer users are resorting to either paying the ransom free or restoring their computer from a full system backup they have saved.

The previously mentioned crypto-ransomware threats are known to encrypt files where they cannot be used. Basically, the files encrypted by crypto-ransomware threats will utterly destroy a computer by making its files inaccessible leaving no choice but to restore from a backup. Even if the ransomware threat is removed successfully, computer users are left with multiple encrypted files, which are useless and lost forever if a backup copy is not available.

While there are measures to protect your computer from ransomware infections, such as using extreme caution when viewing spam email messages with attachments, avoiding questionable websites with several pop-up advertisements, and limiting the download and installation unwanted programs from file sharing sites, ransomware cannot be 100% avoided. The only sure way of "protecting" your computer is through backing it up and all of your files. As the saying goes, "better to be safe than sorry." IN the case of protecting against ransomware, your proactive actions are more important than your reactive actions. Take our word for it.

The video below, from CNN, provides real-world examples of how Ransomware is now a growing crime wave.