Scattered across the world, an elite team of code-cracking techies is working tirelessly on your behalf to thwart the most notorious cyber scourge of our time. You’ve probably never heard of them. But if you work for a school, a business, a hospital, or a municipal government, especially if its cybersecurity is imperfect, chances are that you’re painfully familiar with the group’s sworn enemy: ransomware. Again and again, these ordinary people, mostly self-taught and often struggling to make ends meet, have outwitted the shadowy networks of hackers and criminal gangs that lock computer networks and extort huge payments in return for the key.

The Ransomware Hunting Team is the incredible true story of a band of misfits who have used their extraordinary skills to save millions of ransomware victims from paying billions of dollars to criminals. Working in their free time from bedrooms and back offices, they offer their services pro bono to those whom the FBI, other government agencies, and the private sector are unwilling or unable to help. This book follows the teammates as they respond to dire calls for help—and tracks the ups and downs of their work as they race to rescue precious files and communicate directly with their adversaries. Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden’s The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller set in a dangerous new era of cybercrime.