Ransomware virus and its effects:
You must have heard of the recent ransomware attacks that has sent shivers down the IT industry. You must have even heard of it before but must be unknown what a ransomware is? And to what extent can it damage your computer. Here we are going to find out what basically a ransomware is, how does it work and what are its effect.
It will be really hard to explain this stuff in classic technical terms with the inclusion of cryptography so we will keep it simple let’s say it is one type of malicious virus that locks up your computer data and demands for a ransom amount to be paid to get back your data. Usually according to experts hardly has anyone recovered their data after the payment of the specified amount. Here the hackers who have intruded possess the decryption key necessary to gain back access to your decrypted files. In other words it is one form of extortion the only thing is that it is done online without any trace of the ransom giver.
Viruses have always been an inevitable issue to be regretted since the advent of computers. Various viruses have been intruding into numerous computers affecting a large number of computers all over the world. It is evident that many huge virus attacks have happened in the past causing a number of big companies and military facilities to lose their money and important information effectively. In recent trends one ransomware virus named “WannaCry” had globally affected many computers and operating systems all over the world. The effect of this ransomware has been far fetching and it has hit the economy of many large countries.
Basically most of the people in the world are either using pirated software or other having registered softwares are not being updated. Because of all these factors they have become very much susceptible to ransomware attacks. Most of the IT experts were completely boggled when this attack happened on a large scale. It had taken toll on computers in different countries. As far as India is concerned we have been least prepared for this ransomware virus and thankfully no such attack had dived into any of the PC’s. another situation where we were pitied are our ATM machines in which more than 60 % of the Cash Withdrawal machines were running on the astonishingly old Windows 98. This had forced the government to stop the service of ATM’s all over India for few days until they were updated with the latest software.
As for now the effect of this virus is getting reduced but we can expect more such attacks in the future and if not taken good security measures and improve the existing system of softwares then our future is sure to be doomed.
