Ransomware is still a very lucrative business, There is no doubt. Los Angeles Valley College has given a good account of this, who has seen how he has had to pay 28.000 dollars to cybercriminals in order to recover their hijacked files.
The attack, Produced during the Christmas holidays, affected all campus services and devices (Online Services, Financial, mail and VoIP servers, even the computers of the 1.800 Students and teachers).
The cybercriminals gave a week to make the payment, otherwise, the files would be deleted.
The University, as often happens, I wasn't backing up properly, so he had no choice but to pay the requested amount.
According to official sources, for the University it was much cheaper to pay the ransom than to remove the ransomware from their devices and recover the information.
After you make the payment, Cybercriminals gave it the decryption key. Hopefully, Of course,, since this time the key was valid and it worked, Because paying doesn't guarantee anything.