Story 2015-04-18 79WG Ransomware Decryptor - NHTCU & Kaspersky Lab

Ransomware Decryptor - NHTCU & Kaspersky Lab

by
Anonymous Coward
in security on (#79WG)
Police departments across the United States are easy targets for hackers who infect their computers, encrypt their documents and give them a deadline to make a payment to decrypt their data. Over the weekend, some Maine police agencies reported having to pay ransom to hackers in order to keep their files. In Tewksbury, Massachusetts the police chief said he paid a $500 bounty to get back the department's data.

The National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) of the Netherlands' police, the Netherlands' National Prosecutors Office and Kaspersky Lab have been working together to fight the CoinVault ransomware campaign. They have been able to obtain data that can help you to decrypt the files being held hostage on your PC, providing both decryption keys and the decryption application. For more information see this how-to. Note that new keys will be added in the future:

https://noransom.kaspersky.com/

https://blog.kaspersky.com/ransomware-cyber-extortion/
https://securelist.com/blog/virus-watch/67699/a-nightmare-on-malware-street/
https://noransom.kaspersky.com/static/kaspersky-coinvault-decryptor.exe
https://noransom.kaspersky.com/static/convault-decrypt-manual.pdf
Reply 4 comments

Those sneaky hackers.... (Score: 1)

by tanuki64@pipedot.org on 2015-04-18 18:23 (#7AXS)

Police departments across the United States are easy targets for hackers who infect their computers,
Sneak into the police departments and manipulate the computer without the police noticing it. Respect!

Or is this not the way it happened? I wonder how the police computer got infected, if they are used as intended: For work.

Re: Those sneaky hackers.... (Score: 1)

by fishybell@pipedot.org on 2015-04-20 20:08 (#7ETJ)

I would assume that the police are easy targets the same reason grandma is: computer illiteracy.

Are countries just not cooperating against this crime? (Score: 1)

by fnj@pipedot.org on 2015-04-22 08:19 (#7JH5)

How do the ransomware hackers not get rounded up with extreme prejudice?

Restore (Score: 1)

by lmariachi@pipedot.org on 2015-04-22 21:06 (#7M2E)

Just restore from yesterday's daily offsite backup. What's that? You don't do that? Guess your data wasn't all that important to you then.