Ransomware has a nice scary name, which is good, because it can be really scary. It’s how the bad guys hold your computer hostage until you pay a ransom. If you don’t pay, you can lose everything on your computer.

How does it work? Well, first of all, it encrypts your computer. There’s two kinds of encryption, one way and two way. One way encryption is where your stuff is encrypted, but there’s no way back from it. Once it’s done, it’s done. Passwords are usually one-way encrypted, that way no one can reverse them and find out what your password is.

The other method of encryption is two way. I can encrypt something and turn around and un-ecrypt it (also known as decrypt). Two-way encryption uses a key to decrypt the encrypted string. If you don’t know the key, you can’t decrypt and your data stays encrypted forever. Unless you can figure out the key.

An Encryption Key

The hard part is you don’t know how long the key is, what is in the key, what isn’t in the key, you could spend the rest of your life trying to decrypt it by trying every possible string you can come up with… and still never do it.

Ransomware takes advantage of that. They encrypt your system and then demand a ransom so that they’ll give you the key. Pay them or… no more pictures, no more computer code, you lose everything on your computer, never to be seen again.

How do you get attacked? Well, the usual method is by spam. Despite what they show on tv or the movies, you generally have to let the bad guys in.

Click on that link in the spam or download a strange attachment or even find yourself surfing in a dangerous part of the Internet and you can be attacked too. Try not to let it happen! Don’t click on the link or download anything unless you’re absolutely sure it’s safe.