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(CNN)Eddy Williems was working for an insurance company in Belgium back in December 1989 when he popped the floppy disc into his computer.
The disc was one of 20,000 sent in the mail to attendees of the World Health Organization's AIDS conference in Stockholm, and Williems' boss had asked him to check what was on it.
A few days after inserting the disc, Williems' computer locked and a message appeared demanding that he send $189 in an envelope to a PO Box in Panama. "I didn't pay the ransom or lose any data because I figured out how to reverse the situation," he told CNN Business.
The bizarre story of the inventor of ransomware
The disc was one of 20,000 sent in the mail to attendees of the World Health Organization's AIDS conference in Stockholm, and Williems' boss had asked him to check what was on it.
A few days after inserting the disc, Williems' computer locked and a message appeared demanding that he send $189 in an envelope to a PO Box in Panama. "I didn't pay the ransom or lose any data because I figured out how to reverse the situation," he told CNN Business.
The bizarre story of the inventor of ransomware
