My computer’s acting strange

Last week a long-time Fort Wayne computer repair client contacted me about his Microsoft Windows 7 computer. Their data files wouldn’t open and the computer wasn’t acting right. Additionally, strange pop-ups were appearing at the computer’s start-up. It was discovered that my client received what they thought was a Adobe update for one of there products and installed it. After arriving on the scene, I found the pop-up to be a Ransomware note explaining that the user’s files were encrypted and held hostage until a ransom was paid. The computer was scanned and the ransomware virus found and quarantined.  As I expected, the data files weren’t readable even with a few tricks.  If my client had backed up their files to an external device or a cloud storage service, this might have had a happy ending.  We didn’t pay the ransom because the is no proof the data kidnappers would cooperate and my client could recreate his documents from their email messages.  Be sure to pay attention to what you’re installing on your computers and backup your important files.