Hungarian companies paid more than 1.5 million euros ransom to blackmailers

Uzletresz.hu writes that Hungarian companies seem to have paid more than 1.5 million euros (HUF 500 million) ransom to developers of ransomwares, that is, blackmailing viruses in the past two years.

According to an American research, companies are more inclined to pay to blackmailers than private persons. Based on the experience of G Data, an antivirus software creator, the blackmailed Hungarian firms paid averagely a ransom of almost 600 euros (180 thousand HUF) when their data got encrypted.

After the payment nearly 70% of the firms did indeed receive the key necessary for restoring the files, but complete recovery of files was hardly ever carried out. The estimation of G Data says that the domestic firms might have transferred approximately 1.5 million EUR (500 million HUF) to criminals in order to get back their encrypted docs.

However, paying the ransom did not actually guarantee the receiving of a key; in about one third of the cases the companies had no use in giving the money. Moreover, receiving the key did not guarantee the recovery of the files either; even when they paid, only 60-70% of the original files were restored.

Ransomwares are of the most dangerous malwares, because they encrypt files and close off the computers from their users. In many cases there are no ways for decoding, so the users loose their data forever.

One of the essentials of defence is the use of licensed and updated antivirus software, which then protects the computer, including the OS X operation system. Furthermore, users should NOT open any attachments from unknown senders, not even when they seem especially interesting.