8. Computer Virus That Kills

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If there is really such a thing as karma, the cyber crooks who unleashed this nasty malware don’t have many good things to look forward to. Ransomware is a type of virus that locks down a victim’s computer by encrypting all the data on their hard drive. Without the password needed to decrypt the data, it’s just about impossible to recover. These programs will usually display a message on the computer screen indicating that the person who owns it has committed some type of crime and will have to pay money in order to get the password or they will never get their data back. In some cases, the messages will threaten people with prison if they do not pay. This is what happened to a 36-year-old man in Romania whose computer was infected with ransomware. Unfortunately, the man believed that it really was the police who had locked down his computer, and were threatening him with 11 years in prison. The prospect of going to prison was so upsetting for him that he killed both his 4-year-old son and himself by hanging.