It is rather rare, even exceptional, that hackers repent, so much so that it must be emphasized. After 6 years of bad and malicious services, the group of hackers of Shade officially announced the cessation of its activity on Github, reports Bleeping Computer.
A retirement which is being done with great fanfare since the developers of ransonmware have shared more than 750,000 decryption keys intended for victims of their work. These will allow companies victims of ransomware to lift the compression of their data, provided they know how to use them.
Hackers are aware that the task will not be easy for their victims and appeal to the antivirus publishers. "Unfortunately, using our decryption tool is not the easiest, and victims may have concerns about making it work properly. We hope that by having the keys, the antivirus companies will publish their own decryption tools, which are easier to use, ”they explain.
Krapersky, antivirus software that has already released a limited number of decryption keys, said it will update its ransomware decryption tool to make it easier for Shade victims.
An exceptional gesture
Finally, they assured that Shade's code would not be released: “All of the data related to our activity (including the source codes of the Trojan horse) has been irrevocably destroyed. We apologize to the victims of the Trojan horse and we hope that the keys we have released will help recover the data. "
An amazing mea culpa that cannot be explained. The Shade authors did not indicate the reasons why they stopped their malicious activities. However, they apologized to their victims for the harm done.
The decision of the developers of Shade goes against the global trend of malware that has been increasing for several weeks, surfing on the coronavirus to make victims. Since 2014, ransomware has mainly targeted Russian and Ukrainian organizations, specify our colleagues from Numerama.
High-Tech
Ransomware: Over $ 140 million ransom paid to hackers in six years, FBI says
High-Tech
Phishing: Apple customers are prime targets for hackers
- High-Tech
- Computer virus
- Piracy
- Cybersecurity
- Personal data
- Cyber attack
- Cybercriminality
- Hacker