"European Cops Helped 1.5 Million People Decrypt Their Ransomwared Computers"

Over the last six years, European cops estimate that they have assisted approximately 1.5 million people and organizations in decrypting files encrypted by ransomware, saving around $1.5 billion. Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, recently released these figures on the sixth anniversary of the No More Ransom project, which brings together law enforcement and private industry partners to provide decryption tools and other assistance to ransomware victims. According to Marijn Schuurbiers, the head of operations at Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, the initiative was born when a Dutch telecom called the local police to alert them that their employees had discovered a command-and-control (C2) server inside their infrastructure used by a ransomware group. When Schuurbiers and his colleagues seized the server and began investigating the case, they discovered it contained the decryption keys that would unlock the files encrypted by the hackers. From there, they looked into offering these decryption keys for free to the victims via a website. The group currently provides 136 free decryption tools for 165 ransomware variants, including Gandcrab, REvil, and Maze. This article continues to discuss the No More Ransom project. 

Motherboard reports "European Cops Helped 1.5 Million People Decrypt Their Ransomwared Computers"