You should already be backing up your important files especially your digital photos anyway. External hard drives are cheap and there are cloud storage sites that will provide a limited amount of storage for free. To be really safe I back up my photo files on flash drives and store them in my bank safety deposit box.
That's true, but life is messy, and not everyone backs up their files when they should. Criminals, such as those who launched this menace, are exploiting that human shortcoming.
They ought to be hung by the neck til dead for committing this crime.