Over the last few years I have noticed an increase in customers being affected by “ransomware.” Ransomware is a type of malware that locks you out of a function of your computer by encrypting it or by locking up your browser. The ransomware offers the option to pay a fee to remove the lock. On a Mac we commonly see this when a user has been locked out of a web browser as the built-in security protocols generally prevent malicious encryption of your data.
The image at the right and below are two examples of the type of pop up that you may see:
As you can see one pop up tries to convince you that there’s a threat and claims to be Apple support. It also provides a number for you to call and get support. The other one relies on including the FBI name in the web address to make it seem genuine. The FBI ransomware relies on a threat to get you to pay them to unlock it.
Most of the time you can simply avoid ransomware by avoiding sketchy websites and 3rd party software downloads. Thankfully on a Mac it is generally very easy to remove ransomware. The file usually hides in the internet files and can be purged by emptying your recent history. If you are not able to clean it out yourself you can always bring the affected machine to us and we can remove it for you. We provide adware/malware/ransomware removal for $65 and the process usually takes less than a day.