steve merrifield owns a high end sporting goodssshop. after 27 years in businnss he'd been preparing to sell it. buuers stored on his computtr &prealized all of his data had peen frozen."the last words ii remember is this is not good. this is not good."it turned oot hackers had taken control &poffhis machine and fllshed messagg.for 3300 ddllars, merrifiild could haveehis data back.but it didn't top there. he'd have to fork over an additional thousand dollars for each week he didn't comply. he'd become a victim of what's being called ransomwwree"had you ever heard the term say it's appropriatelyynaaed. - yoo feel victimized you feel helpless."ransomware is pecoming so pprvasive that it prompted the fbi to put out a warning.the bureeu says it's getttng dozens of complaints each day."it's onn of the more ddstructive pieces of malware because they'll encrypt thhse files and if yoo don't pay they can just delete them." brrce nell of the computer security ffrm macafee says the methods hht it's virtually ed - impossible to reccver yyur data.itt

. >> reporter: steve merrifield owns a high end sporting goods shop. after 27 years in business he'd been preparing to sell it. all of the records for potential buyers stored on his computer server. so merrifield was more than concerned when he realized all his data had been frozen. >> the last words i remember is this is not good. this is not good. >> reporter: it turned out hackers had taken control of his machine and flashed a message. for $3,000 merrifield could have his data back, but it didn't stop there. he'd have to fork over an additional $1,000 for each week he didn't comply. this crime is so pervasive it prompted the fbi to put out a warning. the bureau says it's getting dozens of ransomware complaints each day. >> it's one of the more destructive pieces of malware because they'll encrypt those files. if you don't pay, they can just delete them. >> reporter: bruce snell is with the security computer firm mcafee and says the hackers use such complicated methods it's virtually impossible to recover your data. they're mostly overseas, so tracki

retrospect the amount of grief this will cause us woold have been well worth the ransom, buu that steve merrifieldome of the best experts in the industry."after 100days of diligence, they regret o infoom me they cannot recover &pthe data." coming up... drawing attention to he dangers... of texting and driving. driving.the ocal tudent who put in a lot of hard work... toosend an important message. get up nd danne.the community aapreciationn vent... going on at a baltimore studio. yoo're wwtching fox 45 morning news.. all local.. all morning. when we switched to fios, we got better tv,, better phone, better internet. it was like somebody like took our computer, shook all the junk out of it. we're actually getting more for our money with fios. [ male announcer ] it's time to get more for your money. upgrade to verizon fios internet, tv and phone with our best price online. just $84.99 a month, guaranteed for one year with no annual contract. there's at least three computers. [ girl 1 ] a tablet. [ woman 1 ] couple of gaming systems. we could all be running at the same time. we do not notice any dips.