Portugal is one of 13 countries to sign up to the No More Ransom project, designed to combat ransomware – a new type of virus that blocks computers, demanding the payment of a ransom. According to a statement released by European police, the project has already helped 2500 people unblock devices without having to pay hackers’ demands. Estimates suggest the project has deprived IT pirates of €1.35 million.
But as Público concludes: “Europol stresses that ransomware is one of the largest threats of current times and although targets are in the most part personal-use computers and other IT devices, business networks and even government departments are affected by this kind of criminal activity”.
No More Ransom was launched three months ago by Dutch police in conjunction with Europol, Intel Security and Kaspersky Lab, explains the paper.
Since then “judicial authorities” from Bulgaria, Colombia, France, Hungary. Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and Latvia have joined the initiative.
