Attacked by a ransomware

It's really hard to catch them since they hide on the net. Unless you play along with them and convince them to meet in person and maybe authorities will be there to arrest this person.

@rsa101 i'm thinkin' there'd be 'nough hackers'n such with the knowledge'n capability to track these folks down. 'twixt this'n scammin' folks o'er the phone's well 's identify theft... all make my blood jest boil. i honestly dunno how these folks sleep 't night 'r can look 'emselves'n the mirror. 'd be nice to turn the tables, eh?

Yeah no other choice but to clean the whole OS since the infection has gotten deep already and formatting will be the only way to get rid of it.

He would by reformatting the whole computer since all his files were encrypted so he can only rely on his backup files he kept and his current files infected would not be recovered anymore.

@JudyEv Yup looks like he got a nasty one and even has the nerve to ask for money to restore his files back.

@rsa101 That sounds really bad.

Oh I really do not know. He said he downloaded a file that was infected with the virus. After installing it he couldn’t control his mouse then all his files were decrypted. All his files show garbage information.

@yoalldudes In my officemates pc there was a message everytime he tries to open an infected file to contact and pay this certain person to restore the files back to normal.

@rsa101 That's what happened to me as well. So scary. I was so stresssed.

It's not mine fortunately. The files he has has been encrypted and he cannot read them anymore if you open them. The owner of the ransomware has the code to decrypt all of the files that was encrypted. He is asking for money in exchange. I think that is why its called ransomware because after infecting your PC you cannot literally control your PC and its content anymore. The only solution would be to really start clean by reformatting your PC and reinstalling a clean slate of softwares again.

@Nakitakona Yes and there’s no assurance that they will give you the code to decrypt the files back to normal again.

@rsa101 or you pay for the ransom money.

Yup and many fall victims of this if you are not careful browsing the net.

@rsa101 true

I do not know if he was backing up his pc in Microsoft restore. It is hard to restore it back since if he was successful in restoring previous versions it might be that birus is included in that backup.

Yeah I guess you avoid downloading some softwares that come from sites that are not reliable. It looks like this employee was searching for some software and unfortunately the software was infected with the virus.

Well he is our IT guy so he knows what he will do with his PC. It's the files that is what cost him since some were important files and he would have to redo everything from the beginning if he doesn't have the files for it.

It maybe so but cellphone is a bit different from PC infection. In CP usually they would just try to destroy the OS and functionality all files are safe in your Phone and you can just reset the phone and it usually would work again. In PC its OS and files that are being corrupted and eventually making the OS inoperable anymore and would need to reinstall all your softwares and usually the files are not usable anymore.