Each day sees advancements in the cybercrime business. The introduction of online data storage services has seen a boom in cybercrimes. There are now cybercrimes we don’t even know of or are able to pronounce. We do not even know it, and our personal information is in the hands of a stranger who has complete intention to abuse it. It is true that wherever there is something valuable, there are thieves, and it is true in this case as well. Cybercriminals are often one step ahead and do not mind using dirty manipulative tricks to get vital information out of the potential victim.

One of these fearsome cybercrimes is the ransomware. This is a type of malware that encrypts the files of the victims. In order for the access to resort to the victim, the attacker will receive a payment or whatever they want in a given time. The users will be given instructions on how to transfer the fee to be able to get the key for decryption. The costs usually range from a couple of hundred dollars to a thousand, that would be payable to the cybercriminals in Bitcoin.

How does it work?

There are several ways in which these vector ransomware are able to access the victim’s computer. One common way that this happens is through phishing spams. The victim will get certain attachments in an email that is masqueraded as a file that they can trust. Once the file is downloaded, and the victim opens it, the virus takes over the victim’s computer. This is especially easy if the cybercriminals have in-built social engineering tools that would trick the users into giving them administrative access. Other, more aggressive forms of ransomware will infect security holes to be able to infuse into the computers without really tricking the users.

There are many things that malware does when it takes over the victim’s device. Among the most common thing is encrypting an extremely important file. The worst part about all of this is that the key to this sort of encryption is only available with the attacker, and it is impossible to deduce since it is mathematical in nature. The user will be notified of the deed by receiving a message that their files have now been encrypted and the only way to re-gain access to them is by doing as the attacker says.

In some cases, the attacker poses as a law enforcement agent and shuts down the victim’s computer on the grounds of illicit content or pirated software present on it. They then ask the victims to pay a fine, which would make them much less likely to report the incident to the authority.

One surefire way to keep your information safe is by downloading the Avanan Inc. cloud security solution. The award-winning security service is headquartered in New York, with a dedicated research and development department present in Tel Aviv. The company delivers an in-depth defense system that comes with a multi-vendor security solution, which would allow the organizations to save themselves from becoming victims of advanced threats like malware, data leakage, account takeover, phishing, and ransomware.