1 00:00:00,437 --> 00:00:02,510 Ransomware, if you've watched the news 2 00:00:02,510 --> 00:00:05,340 or you scrolled Facebook or you read the newspaper 3 00:00:05,340 --> 00:00:06,640 in the last year or two, 4 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:08,890 you probably already know what ransomware is. 5 00:00:08,890 --> 00:00:11,270 Ransomware is a type of malware 6 00:00:11,270 --> 00:00:13,421 that restricts access to a victim's computer 7 00:00:13,421 --> 00:00:16,810 or their files until a ransom is received. 8 00:00:16,810 --> 00:00:20,070 That's right, someone is going to go break into your computer, 9 00:00:20,070 --> 00:00:22,660 encrypt your files or change your password 10 00:00:22,660 --> 00:00:24,511 or do something else to hold your system 11 00:00:24,511 --> 00:00:26,750 until you pay up. 12 00:00:26,750 --> 00:00:28,400 You may reboot your computer one day 13 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:30,050 and you see something like this. 14 00:00:30,050 --> 00:00:31,710 Your computer has been locked. 15 00:00:31,710 --> 00:00:33,635 You have to pay a fine of $200 16 00:00:33,635 --> 00:00:35,700 and be able to pay it through Bitcoin 17 00:00:35,700 --> 00:00:38,660 using this link if you want to get access back. 18 00:00:38,660 --> 00:00:41,370 If you pay me, then I'll give you the secret unlock code 19 00:00:41,370 --> 00:00:43,600 and then you can put that in the little white box 20 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:44,830 and hit okay. 21 00:00:44,830 --> 00:00:47,610 Now this is essentially blackmail and extortion. 22 00:00:47,610 --> 00:00:49,586 And often times, even if you pay up, 23 00:00:49,586 --> 00:00:52,136 they won't give you access back to the key. 24 00:00:52,136 --> 00:00:54,300 In the best case, they do. 25 00:00:54,300 --> 00:00:56,445 In the worst case, they've now taken your money 26 00:00:56,445 --> 00:00:58,750 and you've got nothing to show for it. 27 00:00:58,750 --> 00:01:01,270 In fact, experts now say, that it's better 28 00:01:01,270 --> 00:01:03,880 not to pay the ransom, because most of the time, 29 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:06,406 you're not going to get the unlock code back anyway. 30 00:01:06,406 --> 00:01:08,770 Ransomware can be very painful. 31 00:01:08,770 --> 00:01:10,520 Especially if you have all your files 32 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,520 and you don't have any back-ups of those. 33 00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:14,220 This is why, it's very important 34 00:01:14,220 --> 00:01:16,880 that you keep good back-ups of all of your systems 35 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,194 and all of your files, so if you do become the victim 36 00:01:19,194 --> 00:01:22,560 of ransomware, you can simply roll back to an earlier time 37 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:24,039 and restore from back-up. 38 00:01:24,039 --> 00:01:27,127 Now let's look at an example from 2018. 39 00:01:27,127 --> 00:01:29,830 Back in 2018, the City of Atlanta 40 00:01:29,830 --> 00:01:32,560 got infected with the SamSam ransomware. 41 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:34,770 This started spreading across lots of their systems 42 00:01:34,770 --> 00:01:37,647 throughout the city, this ended up costing the city 43 00:01:37,647 --> 00:01:40,210 $17 million to fix. 44 00:01:40,210 --> 00:01:42,260 They decided they weren't going to pay the ransom 45 00:01:42,260 --> 00:01:44,601 but instead they had to spend six million dollars 46 00:01:44,601 --> 00:01:48,070 in services and contracts and software upgrades 47 00:01:48,070 --> 00:01:51,280 and another $11 million dollars in hardware upgrades. 48 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,440 To be able to deal with this ransomware attack 49 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:55,019 that was caused by SamSam. 50 00:01:55,019 --> 00:01:57,485 This makes this the costliest cyber-attack 51 00:01:57,485 --> 00:02:00,950 affecting a government in 2018. 52 00:02:00,950 --> 00:02:02,870 This was despite them not paying the ransom 53 00:02:02,870 --> 00:02:04,832 that was being demanded by the attackers. 54 00:02:04,832 --> 00:02:07,070 There are other examples out there too. 55 00:02:07,070 --> 00:02:09,140 Where hospital systems and patient records 56 00:02:09,140 --> 00:02:11,100 were being encrypted and held hostage. 57 00:02:11,100 --> 00:02:14,440 Or your personal family photos were encrypted in hostage. 58 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:16,528 In any case, ransomware is going through 59 00:02:16,528 --> 00:02:19,536 and using some vulnerability in a piece of software 60 00:02:19,536 --> 00:02:21,353 to gain access to your machine 61 00:02:21,353 --> 00:02:22,956 and then encrypting your files 62 00:02:22,956 --> 00:02:26,130 and once they do that, you have no way to decrypt them 63 00:02:26,130 --> 00:02:27,600 unless you pay the ransom 64 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:31,017 or you restore from a known good back-up.