Ransomware can be turned against the malware that tries to take over your computer. Researchers have found characteristics of the malware’s behavior that could be turned around. One method goes after the droppers that first infect target machines in preparation for downloading the main malware payloads. Another strategy is to make physical machines appear to be virtual machines, he says. Hecker says he performed his experiments on Windows 7 machines, but versions of his mitigations could be made for other versions of Windows.”]