ANATOMY OF A RANSOMWARE ATTACK

Unfortunately, if you fall victim to a ransomware attack and don’t have any backups, it’s probably too late to do anything about it. The usual asking price to unlock is around $500, though many variants threaten to increase this after a couple of days, and may threaten to make decryption impossible after longer. These threats just provoke anxiety in the victim, who’s more likely to pay up before considering the merits of doing so.

What is important to remember is that while there’s a possibility that whoever’s in control of this malware is reasonable enough to provide a decryption key, there’s also the possibility that they won’t. Their business model, after all, is to collect payments, so why should they bother with the extra admin of sending an email after that is achieved? It’s not like people who receive a key will recommend that particular strain of malware to their friends.