Ransomware has come to the forefront of the American lexicon following attacks on pipeline and meat packing companies. Although ransomware attacks have been around for some time now, theyâve grown from hacking individual PCs to hacking entire companies, some of which are critical to the American infrastructure. Hereâs how it works: Ransomware scrambles the target organizationâs data with encryption. The criminals leave instructions on infected computers for negotiating ransom payments. Once paid, they provide decryption keys for unlocking those files. According to the Associated Press, ransomware crooks have also expanded into data-theft blackmail. Before triggering encryption, they quietly copy sensitive files and threaten to post them publicly unless they get their ransom payments. That can present problems even for companies that diligently back up their networks as a hedge against ransomware, since refusing to pay can incur costs far greater than the ransoms they might have negotiated.