How Ransomware Became a Billion-Dollar Nightmare for Businesses

Thanks for sharing. Anyone that doesn't believe it's real is mistaken. I live in the sticks where the social hub is Walmart. Thank goodness for Amazon because anything above the basics requires a 1 hour drive and even then the choices are few. The next level of availability is 2 - 3 hours away. Even in the boonies we are threatened by these attacks. Since the election I have received an email notifying me that an account password had changed. If I was not aware of the problem I might have fallen for it. I heard that today they caught one of the hackers in Canada behind the yahoo hack that affected 1/2 billion users. No surprise that the one perp that was apprehended and the other three had ties to Russian FSB. Russia is essentially a gangster-state ruled by wealth and linkage to the pseudo-government, and has been since the breakup of the USSR. Of greatest concern to me is the large amounts of nuclear material that has come up "missing" since the breakup. For the right price this "off-the-books" material could end up in the wrong hands and wreak havoc globally. A friend that is a computer novice like me had his PC hijacked. It started with a message saying his security software had been breached and besides graphics had audio alarms to enhance the effect. He fell for it and called the toll free number and from that point they had him. His mistake was not shutting his PC down and seeking help, but he did not. It gets worse from there for the uninformed. Once he contacted them they put a hard sell on him to give them remote access, which he did (HUGE MISTAKE), and from that point it only gets worse. At that point they have full access to all of your files and are totally in control. Luckily for him he declined their exorbitantly priced "protection" and shut the PC down. In total he got off light because it only cost him the cost and time of taking his PC to a shop so they could reinstall his operating system. Most know better, but folks never know what they'll do until faced with it in real time. I warned my wife that the threat was present in the area and within a week she experienced a different attempted intrusion on her laptop. It was the Mandiant U.S.A. variant and looks entirely legitimate. It even has a FBI logo for emphasis. I opted to notify our security software provider and after exhaustive checks they gave us a green light. It turns out that this theme is not embedded and one can just close it out via task manager in OS without any harm. The point is that the threats are out there and users need to have a clear mind and action plan in the event they are attacked. If not, then be prepared to pay and be at the mercy of these bad actors in the future.

This is why I am choosing a future in cyber-security.

SSgt GG-15 RET Jim Lint thanks for the read and share, most interesting!