This places the infected user in an extremely bad position: if they did not have the files that were infected backed up in a proper way, they can pay the ransom (and hope that the criminals stick to their word to decrypt) or lose their files.

At the time of writing, 1 Bitcoin can be purchased for approximately 1100 USD. The ransom is paid using an anonymous electronic cash equivalent known as Bitcoin, and ranges from 2-10 Bitcoins depending on the version you were infected with. When infected, Cryptolocker causes your machine to silently encrypt any/all Office and media files that the user has access to (including those on shared drives) using a cryptographically secure passkey that is never stored on your machine. When complete, Cryptolocker presents a screen notifying you that you have 72 hours to pay a ransom or the passkey (and by extension, your files) will be destroyed permanently. Cryptolocker, as it was later coined, amazed security experts with the innovative way it extorts money from the targets that it infects using unbreakable, industry standard file encryption. A particularly nasty new “ransomware” virus has started to appear on the radar of security companies at the end of mid-September.

Crypto locker on machine