This is a real-life story of how I got attacked by a ransomware virus that made me send my BNB to a different BNB address. In this article, how the whole attack happened is narrated, and how I got rid of the attack is exposed.
Before starting with the story, I will touch on what a ransomware attack is and how it can affect your computer.
What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is malicious software (malware) that threatens to expose or limit access to data or a computer system, generally by encrypting it, unless the victim pays the attacker a ransom price.
The ransom demand is frequently accompanied by a deadline. If the victim does not pay the ransom on time, the data will be lost forever, or the ransom will be increased.
These days, ransomware assaults are all too common. It has affected significant corporations in both North America and Europe. Cybercriminals will target any individual or firm, and victims will come from various industries.
Per the definition above, ransomware attackers force you to pay what you don't owe them. In my case, they forced me to send a cryptocurrency (BNB) to an address I did not intend to send anything.
THE STORY:
On one unfortunate evening, when I came back from work, I decided to sell $10 worth of BnB on the Binance P2P platform to sort myself out that evening. The BnB I intended to sell was on my safepal wallet (Safepal is a mobile application cryptocurrency traders use to store, receive and send their cryptocurrencies and tokens) on my phone.
I log in to Binance on my computer since it's faster than my phone whenever I want to use the Binance platform.
What happened was that, since I have to send the BnB from my safepal on my phone to my Binance account, I wanted to send the BnB address from my Binance account and send the BnB to it on my phone.
I successfully copied the address from my Binance account and now had to find a way to send the address to my smartphone so I could use it for the transaction.
I had a telegram desktop on my computer and my phone, and I decided to paste the address to my telegram's "saved messages" and copy it. Now, immediately I press "ctrl + V", the telegram on my computer closed automatically by itself.
I didn't even hesitate to find out the cause for that but only went ahead to open the telegram back and pasted the address with "ctrl + v", but guess what? The ransomware replaced my address with its address as the creator programmed it to do.
I vulnerably copied the address and sent the $10 worth of BnB that evening, and that was how I lost my BnB to a ransomware attack. When I realized the Bnb didn't reflect in my Binance account, I noticed I was under some attack. However, after a few online pieces of research, I knew my computer was infected with a ransomware virus.
HOW I BEAT THIS RANSOMWARE ATTACK.
Since I needed $10 that evening so bad to sort myself out, I had no other option than to send another bnb to my Binance account that evening, and this time around, it was successful. I want to share how I did this cryptocurrency transaction successfully, even with ransomware on my computer.
- When I was sending the BnB the second time from my phone to my computer, I scanned the QR code and had the address successfully on my phone instead of using the address directly. You can as well use this method when you notice you are under a ransomware attack or use the second method below.
- You can copy the address from your Binance or any other platform you use, paste it on your computer clipboard, and mix it with dots or commas on telegram, as shown in the image below.
You will have what you pasted as draft on your clipboard on your phone's telegram. Copy and paste on the wallet you are using, and now remove the dots or commas.
These two methods can prevent you from losing your funds.
How to remove ransomware entirely from your computer
To remove ransomware from your computer, format your computer by following the steps below:
- Press Your windows logo key and head over to settings.
- Look for updates and security and click on it.
- Now click on recovery.
- Click on restart now.
5. You will be asked to either maintain your files or remove them after formatting/restarting your pc. Choose the option you want and format your machine.
6. Now follow the rest of the on-screen instructions to remove the ransomware completely from your computer.