RCMP wish to raise public awareness surrounding the “Cerber Ransomware” scam.

This past week, the detachment at Kelowna generated a police report which involved the Cerber Ransomware scam. Our complainant reported being targeted through an email message, which when opened instantly began to infect file data on their computer system.

A pop up window appeared, that demanded the victim to pay a ransom in order to regain full access to their personal computer, which had already been infected by malicious software that appeared to restrict their access through encryption.

Police have learned that the victim attempted to pay the ransom of a $1,000 in bitcoins, however was unsuccessful. They also consulted with several technical experts, who made efforts to attempt to recover the encrypted files. Thankfully, the victim did not suffer any financial loss or loss of private information data as a result of the scam.