Ransomware is a type of malicious software (aka, malware) that threatens to publish your credentials and block access to data or a computer system until the victim pays a ransom fee to the attacker. It’s designed to make your computer inaccessible by encrypting (a process where information is turned into code) all files and holding them hostage. If your computer is connected to a network, ransomware will usually try to spread to any other computers on the network and infect their files too. The only way to decrypt your files is by paying a ransom and retrieving a decryption key. Another consequence of ransomware is that it not only encrypts data, but will create a copy of data and send it offsite to other cybercriminals. Not only is data encrypted and non accessible, but now they can demand a ransom to unlock your files and a seperate ransom to return the files they stole.