“Nope. That’s not going to work.” I stared at the computer screen and looked at the encrypted list of files. “This is a new ransomware. One I don’t know how to undo.”
Charles had brought me his computer. “It put up this screen,” he showed me a picture of the screen on his phone. It was a classic ransomware notice. Your files have been encrypted. The encryption key is stored on our server. For $500, US, we’ll send you the key, and you can decrypt your files.”
I knew the encryption had stopped. I’d pulled the Solid-State Drive out of his computer and hooked it to my recovery system as a standard external drive used for data storage. Sure enough, tons of his files were encrypted.
I’d already copied the clean files off the system.
“512-bit SHA, Charles. I could hack it, but it would take my network years to find the right decryption key.”
“I’m doomed, right? Ransomware?”
“Yep.” The ransomware, it would not rest until he had paid for the key. “I put the drive back in your computer, and boot it up, and it’ll keep right on encrypting things. Sad part is it’s not legal to pay for the key.”
“What?”
“Yeah. So says the FBI.”
“I’m doomed.”
“You should have had an offline backup of all your files, Charles. Then, this wouldn’t be happening.” That was the only good thing about ransomware. It made people learn about data backups.
245 Words
@mysoulstears.bksy.social
This is week 599 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the stories in this week’s #ThursThreads. Some gifted writers write for #ThursThreads every week. The stories are fun to read.
My Soul's Tears 