What is ransomware?

Ransomware is a kind of malware that scrambles information on the casualties PC and requests a payment to discharge access to the information.

Protect yourself being a victim of Ransomware with the below simple steps.

Step 1: Always keep your OS up to date
Step 2: Don't install unnecessary software's which you don't know
Step 3: Install best antivirus software
Step 4: Finally, keep backup of all files up to date

Great! Thanks for the clarification.

Ransomware is a kind of cyber-attack through which hacker blocks user credentials and releases it only when the user pays ransom.

Ransomware is one of the most dangerous and worst attacks you can have on your system. It can sneak onto your PC without your knowledge and encrypt your files with military-grade encryption algorithm like AES-256 and RSA-2048. This means that you will not be able to access or open your personal files. Ransomware programs usually target important files like photos, videos, audios, documents, archives, and databases. Some of these malicious threats can encrypt hundreds of file extensions. 

There are three major channels for you to infect your computer. First, spamming campaigns. These spam mails can be quite convincing and make you wanna open them for further details. They can, for example, claim that you haven't paid for a speeding ticket or parking fine, haven't settled an invoice, there is an issue with your credit card details regarding an online shopping, and so on. Once you click to view the attached file, you are doomed. This attachment is a disguised malicious executable that may look like an image or document.

Second, if your browsers and drivers are not up-to-date and you land on a malicious page that is armed with Exploit Kits, you can easily drop a ransomware infection without even realizing it. Refrain from clicking on questionable third-party ads on suspicious websites (torrent, freeware, dating, porn, etc). Finally, you can also download a ransomware program if you download free or cracked software from shady P2P sites. Before I forget, if you have a remote desktop application installed (e.g., TeamViewer) and it is not securely configured, cyber crooks can gain access to your system, for example, using brute force attacks, and install such a beast, again, without your knowledge.

Some of these ransomware programs can lock and block your screen, disable system processes like Task Manager, Registry Editor, and explorer.exe. In this case, you can still restart your computer in Safe Mode and remove the threat. Most of the time it is enough to delete all recently downloaded suspicious files and random-name Run registry entries. But for this, I would recommend that you find a reputable malware hunter website and check for the specific infection for more details on removal.

One more thing, it does not pay to pay any amount of ransom fee to such cyber criminals because they hardly ever send you the decryption key or tool, so you would simply lose your money too.