\/\/from CNN<\/a>\/\/<\/span><\/p>\n Cyber-criminals collected $209 million in the first three months of 2016 by extorting businesses and institutions to unlock computer servers.<\/p>\n At that rate, ransomware is on pace to be a $1 billion a year crime this year. The FBI told CNN that the number “is quite high” because a few people “reported large losses.”<\/p>\n The agency also said that the losses could even be bigger once other related costs from these extortion schemes are factored in. Plus: Some victims may choose to pay and not report the crime.<\/p>\n CNN recently reported on this fast-growing crime.<\/p>\n In one case, a South Carolina school district paid an estimated $10,000 when cyber-criminals locked up its computer servers.<\/p>\n That relatively small amount is the norm because it encourages companies and institutions to pay up as soon as possible to regain control of their computers.<\/p>\n “The ransomware criminals understand this,” said Paul Roberts, founder and editor of a website called The Security Ledger. Their business in some ways is a volume business so they don’t set their ransom so high that you can’t pay it. They set it at a level so they can get their money and move on to the next victim.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \/\/First published by CNN, April 2016\/\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FBI Says Ransomware Will Net Criminals $1 Billion This Year \/\/from CNN\/\/ Cyber-criminals collected $209 million in the first three months of 2016 by extorting businesses and institutions to unlock computer servers. At that rate, ransomware is on pace to be a $1 billion a year crime this year. The FBI told CNN that the number “is quite\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1433,1669,1670,1656,1674],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11537,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11535\/revisions\/11537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}