{"id":146908,"date":"2016-03-29T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/2016s-newest-most-dangerous-strain-of-ransomware-maktub\/"},"modified":"2016-03-29T06:20:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T11:20:00","slug":"2016s-newest-most-dangerous-strain-of-ransomware-maktub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ntegrait.com\/2016s-newest-most-dangerous-strain-of-ransomware-maktub\/","title":{"rendered":"2016\u2019s Newest Most Dangerous Strain of Ransomware, \u2018Maktub\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Internet has been around for quite awhile now, having birthed entire industries and changed the way economies function. Having been a primarily benevolent force to the world by providing jobs and advancing knowledge in general, among many other things, it has also provided new avenues and outlets for criminals to become more creative.<\/p>\n
Consider the following: technology and the Internet are like cars in a way. Most of us drive them, but most of us don’t know the details of their underlying mechanics, making it is easy for crooked mechanics to take advantage of the naive and unsuspecting. These crooked mechanics have a certain sense of power over someone who can only drive<\/em> a car because they possess the necessary knowledge of how to fix something their customers have brought to them, but also need<\/em> in their everyday lives. In a way, when you put something your entire life relies so much on into someone else’s hands, that someone can very easily extort you. They can charge you whatever their heart desires to ‘fix’ it, or return it you for that matter, because they know you really do need <\/em>it. Now apply this same exact concept to computer users who store massive amounts of important data on their computer.<\/p>\n If the ability to access ones own data is taken away, that data can very easily be taken hostage. Whoever takes it can put a ransom on your precious information and milk you for everything you’re worth. This happens to Internet users everyday in the form of a phishing scam known as ‘ransomware.’ Businesses, especially, are at greater risk of falling prey to the criminals behind scams like this because a company’s information can be accessed from a number of portals. All it takes is one unsuspecting employee to fall prey to an email that might appear to be something as harmless as a “terms of service update.”<\/p>\n