What ’ s worse than ransomware that scrambles all your files and demands money Attack.Ransom for the key to unlock them and get them back ? Well , WannaCry certainly added a new dimension to the ransomware danger , because it combined the data-scrambling process with self-spreading computer virus code . As a result , WannaCry could worm its way through your network automatically , potentially leaving you with hundreds or even thousands of scrambled computers in a single attack , even if only one user opened a booby-trapped attachment or downloaded a file from a poisoned website . The crooks behind the SamSam ransomware have also latched onto a rather different approach : instead of trying to reach thousands or tens of thousands of victims around the world with a hard-hitting spam campaign , and squeezing each of them for hundreds or thousands of dollars each , the SamSammers seem to attack one organisation at a time . Indeed , the SamSammers generally keep their hand hidden until they have broken into the network and figured out , using similar techniques to penetration testers , a list of computers they know they can encrypt all at the same time . Then they let fly on all of those identified devices at once , giving them a much higher chance of scrambling at least some computers that are critical to the workflow of your company , Finally , they make a payment demand Attack.Ransom , typically charging a few thousand dollars for each individual computer you want to unlock , but also offering an all-you-can-eat deal of $ 50,000 to decrypt everything . The bad news is that this WannaCrypt “ demanding money Attack.Ransom with menaces ” threat email is very widespread – we ’ ve had people worried about it from all over , which is why we decided to write up this warning . The good news is that these particular crooks don ’ t actually have any malware to back up their threat . Indeed , their claim that “ antivirus software will not be able to detect [ the ] program ” is one of the few truths in this scam , for the simple and fortunate reason that , in this case , there is no program to detect . Just to be clear here : disk wiping malware – think of it as ransomware with no decryption key , so you can ’ t buy your files back from the crooks even if you want to – most certainly exists . So , these WannaCrypt scammers could , in theory , have been telling the truth , giving you just a few hours to hunt down and turn off their attack code before your data was destroyed . In this particular case , however , the whole thing is a fraud , right down to the existence of the malware in the first place .