As the developers of GandCrab ransomware have announced recently that they have chosen to shut their shop from this month end and will never indulge in ransomware-as-a-service, Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender has released a 5.2 version of decryption tool for the malware.
The security firm has released the software in association with the UK’s law enforcement agency Europol and other agencies such as Austria’s BMI, Belgium’s Federal Computer Crime Unit, Bulgarian Cyber Crime Unit, France’s Befti, Germany’s Wurttemberg, Netherland’s High tech Crime Unit, and Romania’s DIICOT.
Bitdefender argues that the new tool is not going to explore and exploit the flaw in the encryption algorithm, but will directly gain access to the servers of GandCrab ransomware’s control servers to download the decryption tool.
Traditionally, Ransomware is not new to the cyber world. But in recent times its propagation has spiked up and that’s due to two main reasons. First it has become extremely easy for hackers to launch such attacks as they are lucrative and secretive; secondly, there is an apt control mechanism to nip such attacks from the bud.
In near future, the attacks related to malware are going to surge up says the antivirus software offering firm as people and companies are not aware of its repercussions.
FBI which happens to be the first point of contact for such attacks says that paying hackers when a database is hit by ransomware has/will encourage crime so far. So the law enforcement agency of United States discourages ransomware victims from paying to hackers.
Instead, stay proactive and keep all your data backed up so that it can be used at the time of disasters.
Note- Fundamentally we never know what exactly works and doesn’t work in situations when it comes to Cybersecurity. But the plan is to be prepared well in advance to minimize/avoid client embarrassments, data loss, and financial status when the situation arises.
