ZAPPED!

I never thought it would happen to me.  I've heard that it happened to others, but not to me.  No way. 

A 24 hour snow fall shuttered the government last Thursday, so I sat at the dining room table teleworking from my PC.  Not the fasted machine in the camp, but it was a productive day.  I pounded out a risk analysis of one of our major applications and was pleased with it.  I saved it to my official encrypted flash drive, not saved it to my desktop.  That was the last thing that happened before a sinister force took over my PC.  In a matter of seconds all my applications and most of my files had been overwritten with some kind of software that looks like Office Word asking me to select the Asian language I wanted to work in. 

"This can't be happening,"  I screamed by the computer. "I've got two kinds of anti-virus software.  I back up my files to a cloud service every week,"  I moaned, thrusting my hands into the air, pleading to the computer gods.
 
I typed furiously, trying to find an application that worked, then I tried to access the flash drive.  The machine didn't recognize it.  I snapped out the flash-drive hoping against hope that it was not corrupted.  It would be impossible to recreate the paper! 

Thinking that I had been injured somehow, John  rushed out of his home office. "What's happened?  Are you alright?"  I explained.  Like the EMT volunteer he once was, he took direct and immediate action, "Disconnect from the Wi-Fi and then turn off your PC.  You don't want the cloud service to do another backup now that everything has been overwritten."  I did as I was told. My forehead fell onto the dead keyboard. I felt hopeless.  It was like loosing a buddy, a reliable friend who was always there when I needed her.  We'd spent over five years together.

John consoled me.  "This can be fixed.  It's not a fatal blow, but surgery is needed." 
Today, I turned over my friend to the Geek Squad.  The young woman gave me hope. "These old machines are sturdy.  Don't buy a new one.  Give us three or four days and we'll bring her back to life."  I smiled.  I have hope.