The computer hijacking technique called Ransomware has caused major problems for computer users, and an increasing number of student devices at Oklahoma Christian University have been infected.
Ransomware is a virus that hides in an email — that when downloaded — takes control of content from a hard drive and demands a ransom for the user to get back the commandeered information.
“A lot times people will get an email that looks like it came from somebody you know,” John Hermes, vice president of Information Technology Services, said. “They’ll say they want to share a file with you or something, they’ll click on it and it … installs software on your computer, that then can actually encrypt the files or do other things to your files.”
Ransomware encrypts the files so that they are no longer accessible to the person using the computer.
“It’ll pop up a message that says, ‘if you want to access the files you have to pay so much money and here’s how to do it’,” Hermes said. “If you pay that money, they’ll either unlock it or they won’t unlock it.”
The virus can also be activated through pop-ups on a unreliable websites.
“Say you’re visiting, you’ll get a pop-up, it’ll interest you or sometimes it’ll be ‘We’ve detected a virus on your computer. Click here to have it cleaned,’” Hermes said. “And if you click that, it’ll actually install software on your computer that actually is not cleaning your computer, but corrupting your computer.”
There have been two cases on Oklahoma Christian’s campus in which students have gone to support central to recover their files from Ransomware.
“One of them, we were able to clean Ransomware off,” Hermes said. “The other one, encrypted the files and we couldn’t do anything about it. So they lost access to the files.”
Despite the viral season, Ransomware should not be a problem for students who use their smartphones for checking their emails, according to Hermes.
“Typically, on like an iPhone, you can’t run an executable on it,” Hermes said. “So typically mobile devices aren’t as accessible to those kinds of problems.”
However, that does not mean that smartphones are always safe from Ransomware.
“The redirects, where you’re directed to websites and enter your authorization information, that’s the bigger problem and that will happen on any device,” Hermes said.
Ransomware’s effect across the country has many students taking extra precautions against spam mail.
“To see something on the regular news is, ‘oh, this is what’s been happening,’” freshman Luke Mawhirter said. “But it’s in the OC mail and it’s pretty close to home.”
Because college students use devices such as laptops more often than the older generations, they are targeted more frequently, according to Mawhirter.
“We’re not as educated about emails we shouldn’t open, and they just do it without thinking about it,” Mawhirter said. “And we’re really vulnerable to that. It could happen to anybody.”
Freshman Alex Wiggs said students should be smart about what an email contains and the motives behind these programs.
“They want to get money,” Wiggs said. “And they know that people in general aren’t very educated about technology as we like to pretend that we are. So they are exploiting the widespread use of technology to get money from us. I imagine that it probably works.”
Oklahoma Christian’s Information Technology Department said students should not open emails from unknown sources or suspicious attachments.
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