Step 5: Call your IT guy.
- There are guides out there on how you might be able to beat it. You might be able to remove the infection. You might be lucky enough that the particular ransomware you got was one that someone managed to track down an unlock key for. Sadly, this is very unlikely.
- Unless this happens to be a home machine where the data means literally nothing to you and you’ve got nothing to lose, it’s imperative you call your IT guy.
- Most businesses live or die based on their data – their emails, their contacts, their client files, their intellectual property, their accounting information, their irreplaceable data. It’s best to get a professional on the case as soon as possible.
Step 6: Call your insurance broker.
- You followed step 3, right? Because now’s the perfect time to call your insurance broker. If your Insurance Broker doesn’t help you with claims, it might be worth looking for a new Insurance Broker. *cough* like Insuring theProduct *cough*
Step 7: You may actually have to pay the ransom.
- Depending on how closely you’ve followed the earlier steps, there may be no other choice than to pay the ransom.
- Speak to both your IT guy and your Insurance Broker before doing this.
- If you need to pay the ransom, it’s probably going to be in bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, so you’ll probably need your IT guy’s help anyway.
- Depending on the specifics of the situation, it may also be worth involving the police – and they may want to be involved with tracing the payment. This is unlikely and quite uncommon, but it can happen depending on the situation.
REMEMBER: Paying the ransom does not guarantee getting your data back. We do not recommend paying the ransom. We never want to pay the ransom… but sometimes – if everything else fails, you’ve got nothing left to lose, and you need it back – well, you gotta do what you gotta do.