@SQUEEKY2 “That sounds like a bad piece of Malware, or is it a virus??”
It’s an especially nasty form of Malware. Ransomeware adds a suffix to encrypt every file on your computer. So, if your photo collection is on your hard drive, and if you don’t backup, you lose all your photos. The same thing happens to every data file, such as Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, PDF, JPG, etc. Also, if you happen to have a CD or flash drive attached to your computer, it, too, has every file encrypted.
Fortunately for me, my brother’s a Software Engineer who’s very good at what he does. He restored my computer to brand-new condition, back to the day when I’d bought it and before I’d started using it. Stubborn traces of the Ransomware still remained, much like zombies, so he found and removed them. Then, I had to reload all my software and install several years of upgrades. Finally, I copied my data files from backup.
This effort took about a week.
I know exactly what I did wrong. I received an email, supposedly from PayPal, that looked legit and even had PayPal’s address on the From line. I stupidly, foolishly opened an attachment, which put the Ransomware on my hard drive. Since then, I’ve had a few fake banks and credit unions try the same trick, but I’m a bit wiser now.