this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Digging customers out from this is quite literally what I do for a living. Issues aren't always as simple as "don't pay."
The article seemed to be aimed at average desk workers. It didn't contain any data or suggestions not commonly told in phishing tutorials offered by companies.
This is an entry level explanation of a highly complex problem. I would suggest you send it to your grandma or a blue collar friend who doesn't work on computers.
I want to know -
They will demand payment in cryptocurrency, usually bitcoin, which is untraceable. There's no guarantee that they will really keep their word; since it's completely anonymous, there's nothing you can do. If you get infected, you just have to accept that your files are gone. The best thing you can do is backup while you still can.
Make sure some of your backups are kept offline (so that they won't be encrypted along with everything else) and also test that they work regularly! Otherwise they might not do what you think they do.