@AndréBorie I was mostly interested in ways of infection that doesn't involve human stupidity - as I said, my concern is that even technically aware people get infected.

"I've noticed increased frequency of ransomware questions around Stack Exchange." FWIW, NPR did a segment on ransomware a day or two ago.

"FWIW, NPR" - what do those acronyms mean? And what is a "segment on ransomware"?

"For what's it's worth, NPR (National Public Radio) did a segment (a small allotment of time on their radio show dedicated to a certain subject/issue/etc.) on ransomware"

What's with the russia-phobia? :)

@SergioTulentsev malwaredomainlist.com/mdl.php It might be confirmation bias, but huge portion of .ru domains I ever was redirected to were shady or even on my antivirus blacklist. Obviously, if you're Russian most of .ru websites you visit are legit. The list on the link I provided, however, seems to be much less subjective than my observations.

@TomášZato engadget.com/2016/01/08/… - visit that website (Forbes article mentioned) and get pop-under malware... No "user stupidity" needed (other than disabling adblockers). Edit: Looks like Memor-X mentioned the same basic problem in his comment on the leading answer

Click <a href="ransomware.exe">here</a> for the answer to your question!

@AndréBorie - Which is exactly why I remain shocked that the default setting in Windows is "Hide Extensions for Known File Types". That is such a seriously bad idea, I'm surprised somebody hasn't been fired over it. First thing I change on any new installation.

@DarrelHoffman It's almost too easy. It's the first thing we exploit in client phishing tests. Depending on the UAC, we've even had users enter their machines admin creds to open a goddamn jpeg...

@DarrelHoffman There are benefits to the "hide extensions" option, though (whether those benefits outweigh the drawbacks is another question). For example, when "hide extensions" is turned on, it's impossible to accidentally change a file's extension as part of a rename operation. I know a lot of amateur computer users that did things like renaming Shortcut to Microsoft Word.lnk to Microsoft Word, which "broke the computer".

@DanHenderson .lnk extensions are always hidden. Since W7, changing extension by accident is unlikely.

@DanHenderson - It's also impossible to intentionally change a file extension, which is how you end up with settings.cfg.txt and the like. But yeah, in recent versions, the only way to break a shortcut in that way involves using ren from a DOS prompt or equivalent, which such users aren't likely to do anyhow.

@DarrelHoffman As I started reading your comment, I began preparing to respond that you actually can intentionally change an extension when they are hidden, but then I saw that you took care of that for me. :)

@TomášZato Ok, maybe I used a bad example with the .lnk. How about "renaming Cover Letter (2).doc to Cover Letter"? And, yes, I know they improved the UI with W7 to make the rename action preselect the filename without extension, reducing the likelihood of this mistake. But it can still happen if you're trying to keep part of the original name.

@DanHenderson There's also a pop-up telling you you're about to change the file extension and that the file may "become unusable" as a result.

@Doval: and even if the user ignores the warning and goes ahead, the file still isn't as "unusable" as it will be if they get hit with ransomware ;-)

One contributing factor to the increasing prevalence of ransomware is simple economics. Previously, the price for stolen personal data (e.g. credit card numbers, identities, SSNs, etc...) was high enough to be profitable to sell on the black market. But with all the data breaches over the past few years, effectively, all the records have already been disclosed, and the price has crashed. Ransomware monetizes control over your data, because it will always be valuable to you. The price doesn't fall. Attackers go where the money is.