Ransomware

[Barb492]

My HP PC was infected and disabled by ransomware. Just wondering if anyone has had the same experience and whether you had any success with data recovery? I'm pretty much resolved to scrapping the hard drive and losing everything. 

[Bill_To]

Hi @Barb492 

Check this Site for many free decryption tools if you know the ransomware used on your PC. You might get lucky.

I create periodic system image backups on external media. Upon completion of the backup, the external media is then, and always, disconnected from the PC when the operating system is running.

It takes me about 10 minutes to restore a clean backup to a SSD. The restore process is done outside of Windows which should mitigate cross contamination. 

Have been very lucky so far, zero ransomware infections. Hopefully the bad actors will not corrupt my system or ever get any money from me.

But we must be realistic. We will be victims if a bad actor wants to target us.

Regards

[Barb492]

Thank you Bill_To. I do regularly conduct backup to an external hard drive. However, as luck would have it, my external hard drive was connected to my PC just at the time it was infected.

I very much appreciate your input and as I didn't trust my skills adequately, I solicited the assistance of my security software company, and some clever young techies  learned that the infection wasn't ransomware after all. it was a fake ransomware alert from a scammer who was hoping I would call the number on the alert. So none of my files were encrypted, thankfully, and my PC has now been restored to normal function.

But it wasn't a pleasant experience finding my computer completely disabled and you're right Bill, the bad actors will get us sooner or later if they want to. It seems they're always two steps ahead.

Kind regards.