Ransomware viruses are something you don’t want to encounter on your Windows computers.  A ransomware virus can come from different places like a web site or email attachments. They seek out your user files like documents and pictures and then encrypt them so you can’t use them. Next, they demand money to change them back so you can use them.

I had a Fort Wayne computer repair service call last year where the Microsoft Windows 7 computer was popping up alerts and fake rogue programs a few days before my arrival. When I got there, the alerts were gone, but the damage was done. All the user’s word documents and Excel spreadsheets were encrypted and unable to be opened. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked.

This is one good reason to make regular off-line back-ups of your user data. You can copy them to a USB thumb drive or external drive, or burn them to a DVD. Just copy them somewhere besides your computer. Don’t leave the backup device connected to your computer after the backup is done so it doesn’t get infected if ransomware creeps in.

 

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