Ransomware: pay or not to pay the ransomware?

The importance of prevention in the field of information security

Researchers ESET® have recently analyzed the plight of ransomware and risks related to the payment of a ransomware.
It is a threat of gearing up for many even the future of cyber crime, and the data show: the FBI claimed to have received in the time period between April 2014 and June 2015 about 1,000 complaints regarding the CryptoWall, one of the forms the most common of ransomware, with total losses of about 18 million euro.

Joseph Bonavolonta, an FBI special agent, speaking at the Cyber Security Summit 2015 in Boston surprised the audience during his presentation by saying: "To be honest, I often advise people to pay the ransomware, because in the case of ransomware is revealed a good suggestion. "

The recommendation by the FBI to the victims of ransomware to pay to be able to decrypt your files has generated some buzz in the IT world.
It is time to ask: pay the ransomware can really be considered an option? The recommendation of the FBI seems to be in stark contrast to the position of the information security industry, which believes that the ransomware should not be considered as a possible option.

According to experts of ESET it is important not to consider the payment of ransomware as an alternative to prevention.
Treat with blackmailers is different with respect to dealing with, for example, the traffic police. It might be reminded that you can save time by speeding up and accepting the risk of paying a fine as a viable alternative to being late for a job interview.
In this case you can be sure that paying the fine solves the problem. But when you pay a ransomware, you can easily end up empty-handed, with their bitcoins and lost their files still encrypted.

Another reason to encourage prevention with respect to the payment of the ransomware is that in most cases the first does not require significant efforts.
Prevention in this case is to respect the basic principles for safe behavior, such as installing the latest version on the computer systems, and implement a solution to backup and restore data perfectly

Stick to this kind of behavior not only helps to avoid falling victim of ransomware attacks, but also helps to hold off the other computer threats, through
irresponsible behavior of employees up to natural disasters.