Top infosec vendors, cops, liberate thousands from ransomware

'No More Ransom' alliance gives users decryption and defence tools

Warriors from industry and law enforcement collective No More Ransom have cleansed more than 2500 machines of ransomware by distributing free decryption keys and other tools to eradicate infections.

No More Ransom is an alliance of cops and anti-malware experts including McAfee and soon-to-be-former parent company Intel, Kaspersky Labs, Europol's EC3 cybercrime division, and Dutch police.

The group has uploaded thousands of decryption keys and tools to help users avoid paying ransom to net scum who use malware to encrypt precious files demanding cash to revert the damage.

The alliance formalises what had been a scattered and silo-ed, but furious effort by legendary malware researchers to lay waste to scores of ransomware variants, leaving a scant few including the latest Cryptxxx and Cryptowall unbroken.

Security researcher Utku Sen went as far as to upload a deliberately-weakened ransomware blueprint to Github under the guise of a proof-of-concept in a successful bid to demoralise ransomware scum who built on his work.

Jornt v.d. Wiel, a researcher with Kaspersky's elite GReAT threat team, announced the figures and revealed that as of yesterday 822 Coinvault and 941 Shade ransomware victims have been liberated.

A further 700 ransomware victims have been assisted, bringing the total to 2463.

The initiative is certain to have saved victims thousands of dollars, the pain of restoring data and formatting drives (or figuring out to get one's hands on a Bitcoin).

Researchers recently scalped the Wildfire ransomware uploading more than 1600 decryption keys to the initative.

Victims who cannot decrypt their ransomware infections should also try Trend Micro's continually updated decryption tool which recently added the advanced Ceber ransomware to the list of malware it can neuter.

Criminals can net a conservative US$84,000 a month slinging ransomware for an investment of $6000, a whopping 1425 per cent profit margin, Trustwave found last year. ®