I want to share a story with you about something that happened to a friend of mine. Now, just to clarify, when I say “friend” I actually mean friend. This isn’t a story about me where I refer to myself in the third person as a “friend”. I feel the need to clarify that because I realize that I am online a LOT, that I post on social media a LOT, and that I probably overshare a LOT. This friend is a normal person who is online a more normal amount. Again, not me.
So this friend turns on her family computer one day to a message that it has basically been taken hostage.
She is informed that someone else has taken over her computer and will only release it if she pays them a pile of money to “fix” it. Is this sounding familiar to you at all? I’ve heard of things like this happening on the news, but it was always to companies or people who ran their businesses off of their computers, not your average suburban housewife.
But my friend is an average suburban housewife. She is not a blogger. She is not a company. She is not someone who runs a business off of her computer. And up until this happened, she was not someone who you would think would be a target. Except she was. You might be wondering what she could possibly have on her computer that would make her even consider paying a ransom for it? How about family photos, videos, memories, and tons of personal information? The pictures from her son’s third birthday party, video of her parents holding her now two month old when she first came home from the hospital, her personal address book and her entire music collection on iTunes. No, that’s not the same as an entire company’s files, but to a mom, they are equally as priceless.
The kicker is that my friend still has no idea how her computer got infected with the files that allowed it to be taken over. There was no moment where she clicked on a link and then thought “oh crud, THAT was a mistake” or opened an email and realized it was a trojan horse. Heck, it could have been someone else in the family who accidentally clicked on something, but no one remembers anything strange. The hackers are just that good.
So why am I telling you this story? Because I’ve spent some time talking about F-Secure Safe and all the great ways it can protect you and your devices and I keep hearing the same thing over and over again – people don’t think anything like this could ever happen to them. They read about it online and see it on the news, but they figure they are safe because they are just your average folks.
Well, guess what…average folks are being targeted too. And protecting yourself and your devices is not nearly as complicated or expensive as you might think.
Enter F-Secure Safe…_2<<