Ransomware – The Importance of Prevention

If you’ve been affected by ransomware, it can be tempting to pay the ransom to get your files back. This is what the attacker wants and therefore they want you to think that paying will get your files back.

The problem, however, is that once an attacker has your files, they are under no compulsion to keep their word and in fact, are incentivised to simply demand more once you’ve paid.  Because of this, they are likely to take the money and then escalate to ‘requesting’ more; this is a common practice of scammers, especially since paying up shows them that it’s likely to succeed.

Since ransomware isn’t subject to any kind of quality control, there’s no guarantee that your files weren’t accidentally corrupted in the encryption. This means you might not be able to get your files back by paying the ransom, even if the attacker is cooperating.  Paying the ransom demanded will not necessarily return your data to you at all, never mind unharmed.

All of this means that prevention is always going to be better than cure, which is why we recommend taking measures to keep the computer secure, and ensuring you have reliable backups for important files. Our Protect-IT package provides both of these crucial functions. If you have any questions about keeping your computer safe from ransomware, just get in touch.