someone hacked my computer. All my files have been encrypted and a message comes up saying the only way that my files can be unencrypted is for me to pay via bitcoins (which equates to money) gives a site on how to pay this. Tried everything to unencrypt but nothing works. I have a business and have a lot of files that I have to have. Called a computer company and they said that they could not help me. I will not pay this no matter if I lose all my files. Need help please

Sorry, but you are screwed unless you have backed up your computer lately. I know of several small businesses around here that that has happened to recently. Pay up or start over.

Some of the more sophisticated hackers actually have help lines to help you after you pay up.

Try malware bytes anti malware. Burn it to a jump drive and boot your computer in safe mode w/o networking and run it

Google is your friend. Of
course you'll have to use another computer

Find another computer company. A local guy got mine right after the same thing for $90.00. He kept it two days.

This.
Happened to my father-in-law. $105.00 to the local computer guy and got it back to normal in a day or two.

more than likely you can still install malwarebytes, even if you have to do it from safe mode. That will generally take care of garbage like that.

I am a physician and the same thing happened to my electronic medical records about 2 years ago. Not only did you have to pay the ransom in bitcoins but they also required installation of their software. Got my IT guy to work around it but I have some data that is forever lost due to the encryption. Actually had the FBI notify me and came to investigate. Never heard anything more about it.

It locked up files from your EMR??? That's no bueno.

If they did indeed move all of your files into a single location and encrypt that folder - you are likely screwed. Only the person with those encryption keys can decrypt it. Had it happen to a buddy's work machine that contained all of his work files from the last 10 years or so. He so desperately wanted it all back that he actually went thru with the bit coin purchase. Still didn't do any good, he never heard back from them.

This is not your average malware. These folks actually remotely logged into your machine and did this.

Did you have some kind of remote access turned on or something that you are aware of?

I had that happen twice several yrs ago. The first time I started PC in safe mode and downloaded "super antispyware.com" free version. It removed that crap. Second time I had to start over with restore. they wanted $600. I told'em to go screw themselves.
Good luck

that happened to a friend and they paid the $600 or 800 in bitcoins...then got another demand for more $$$, instead of the fix. got a computer company on it and got most of their stuff unlocked.

Had that happen to my work PC a year or so ago. Our IT dept. took my hard-drive and tried to recover it, but never could. Thankfully my work related stuff was saved on the network, but I did lose all my personal stuff on the hard-drive. Good luck getting yours back.

They got my wife's work computer. The company they use said they were screwed. They called a local guy and he had them back going the next day. As far as I know they didn't loose anything.

That's why I use BitDefender. It blocks any partition(s) on your drive from ransomware.

Update: had 2 computer folks look at computer and both said they could not recover. files are encrypted and only those that encrypted can repair and I am determined not to pay them. I guess I will just lose all. Did however find where it entered my computer. It came in an email from FedEx.(be careful, this is happening at an alarming rate.

I'm going to start a business offering to hunt down and break the legs of those hackers for a fee.

Yep - happened on my EMR. They did not gain assess to medical or personal information, but encrypt the data where you cannot use it unless you pay the ransom. Happened to a large hospital in So.Cal. earlier this year. I was tempted to pay the ransom, but I had to install software into my system and there was no way I was going to do that. I suspect this would have given them open assess to whatever. We back up info. daily. Still, there are records that were simply lost.

I hear perch did it..just a rumor tho..anyone willing to start a go fund me for the fee?

Welcome to the world wide web where even third world countries can access your most private data.