It is unfortunately likely the next big thing in hacking, ransomware. Ransomware is a hot trend in hacks. The idea is simple. Attacking your machine to get to your data, but instead of taking it and then going and doing something nefarious with it, they leave it in place and encrypted, lock it up so, you can't get to it until you pay a ransom to the hacker that locked it up. This could happen to individuals small business or to a large organization. Infuriatingly, if you are the victim of a ransomware attack on your own personal machine and they're fairly rare still, but growing, there's a weird gray area you may find yourself in. 

The great option you do have is, before the attackers and once again, backup becomes important, but in a special way. Really consider a cloud backup, because many of the ransomware attacks can also seek out other data devices on the local network and perhaps attack them as well.