In the real world, kidnapping is a risky crime—getting paid usually means getting caught. In the digital world, however, demanding ransom for data, or ransomware, is an escalating epidemic, a popular crime which is leaving many businesses and consumers at risk of losing data.
One small company in New England—a retailer with some two-dozen employees—learned that the hard way. A click-happy employee ended up infecting one system with a prevalent threat known as CryptoWall, according to the company’s co-owner, John, who asked that his real name and details of his business not be revealed.
Ransomware may roam undetected
Quietly, the malware reached out over the Internet to get a unique key and then, over the next three days, encrypted data on the compromised system. Much worse for the company, the malware encrypted accounting data on a mapped drive on the firm’s server.
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