Ransomware and Demands

Ransomware is a newer type of virus which infects your computer and infiltrates your system holding your data and files hostage until you pay their demand.

They do this by encrypted your data, usually documents and photos making inaccessible to you, with the promise of decrypting in back to readable once you have paid the ransom.

However, in my experience, non one who has paid the ransom has actually had their files released. In fact, all the people we have seen with Ransomware on their computer who have paid the ransom have seen the criminals use their credit cards for other things, and never once releasing their victims files, they simply disappear.

If you have ransomware on your computer, never pay the ransom. With these sort of things, were you are giving demands on your computer, prevention is much better than a cure. Having pre-installed antivirus software which guards against ransomware can even help in the recovery of your files if you are still to get infected.

Search Redirects

Its impossible to remember of know all the names and addresses of all the possible websites you have used and will use. That’s why search engine websites like Bing and Google are so important when surfing the internet.

A lot of browsing software such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox come with their own search built into the web browser, so you only need to type what you are looking for and the take you to a search engines, like Googles search results.

When these results start to look a bit strange, badly formatted and directed to search sites you have never heard or seen before (not Google or Bing) you might have a redirect hack on your computer.

These hacks are installed for the purpose of redirecting you to the pages they want to take you. Hackers are paid big money from other companies to get real human traffic like you to their websites, either for the purpose of stealing your information, selling you something or some other way of taking advantage of you.

Random Popups

Another sign your computer might be hacked is if you are suddenly getting a lot of popups on your computer.

Popups are actually great tools for web designers which alert their users of different offers and things they need to know about.

However, criminals and hackers have given popups a bad name as they use them to take over peoples computers and web surfing, sometimes making the computer unstable.

Popups are usually installed by accident, when you download and install other software it can come prepacked, usually designed by criminals.

These bad popups are usually designed to make you buy or install other software packages. An example is you might get a popup which wants you to click and go to a movie watching website. Once on this website you will be told your computer doesn’t have the necessary software to make the movie play and then give you another popup asking you to download the needed software.

This software is usually something like a fake antivirus or spyware, designed and used to take over your computer and steal your money.

Your Login Password No Longer Works

Computer Logins are very important. We keep so much personal, private and important work information sorted on our computers, we don’t want anyone who is not suppose to be see it, viewing and accessing this important data.

Your computer password is the important key which protects all this information and a very effective way of someone being able to have the time to access your files and get the information they need is by accessing your computer or laptop remotely and changing the password so you will not be able to get in and interrupt what they are doing.

Its common to forget passwords; we all do it and it happens to a lot of people. But for the majority of people, when their password no longer works, it is probably because their computer or login account has been changed or taken over.

If you have a Microsoft account and it is connected to your phone or personal information such as email, you might be able to logon to their website from another computer or phone and change the password to a new one so you can gain access to your computer and files again.

However, if that doesn’t work it could mean big trouble and your computer will need to be taken offline and a computer professionally might need to unmount your hard drive, put it into another computer, try and access your files, put the hard drive back in, reset your computer and then put your files back on.

If the hackers have encrypted your hard drive, you might not be able to get back in and the computer might need to be restored back to like the day you got it, meaning no data, unless you have a backup kept somewhere.

Website Password isn’t Working

I know what you are thinking, if my password isn’t working on a website, how could it be my computer has been hacked.

For most, websites are very secure. Every now and again you here of a massive hack taking place on a very famous and large website, but compared to how many websites are out there the percentage is very small.

Once they have your password, the use it, login and chance it to the password of your liking.

There can be many motives to why they would want access to your website. Maybe they want to purchase things, maybe they are just curious or maybe they want to hold you to ransom.

Whatever the motive, when someone has the password for your website it can be hard getting it back unless you have some sort of backup email or phone number set up.

If you think your computer has been hacked, or something just doesn’t feel right on your laptop and computer, call Townsville computer repairs Nerds today for a free no obligation diagnosis and quote.