Cyberextortionist

Updated: 07/06/2021 by Computer Hope
Criminal using a laptop.

A cyberextortionist is a person or group of people that participate in cyberextortion. Cyberextortion is a computer crime where the extortionist demands payment, goods, or a service to stop an attack or recover deleted or encrypted data.

For example, a cyberextortionist may infect a company's network and computers with ransomware that encrypts all their data. They demand payment through bitcoin for the encryption key to decrypt and unlock the company's data. Another example of cyberextortion is a cyberextortionist subjecting another person or company to a DoS (denial of service) attack until they pay a ransom.

Although experts recommend you do not pay a ransom, it is a difficult decision for the business, school, hospital, or government office that cannot operate without the data.

Computer crime, Cyber, Ransomware, Security terms