Police Tricked DeadBolt Ransomware to Giveaway it’s Decryption Keys

Police Tricked DeadBolt Ransomware to Giveaway its Decryption Keys

In association with a cybersecurity firm, the Dutch police have cleverly fooled the DeadBolt ransomware into giving a bunch of decryption keys for almost free!

Observing that DeadBolt ransomware follows an automatic system for releasing the decryption keys for victims upon payment, the police have tricked the system into releasing keys even before the ransom payment is confirmed and canceling it to refund themselves.

Tricking DeadBolt Ransomware

Leveraging a loophole in the payment system of DeadBolt ransomware, the Dutch police, in association with a cybersecurity firm called Responders.NU has obtained about 155 decryption keys and is offering them for free to the victims.

DeadBolt gang has been active since early this year, especially by hitting the QNAP and Asustor Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices – and demanding 0.03 bitcoin ransoms from the victims. As they locked out thousands of devices, the Dutch police were tasked to contain the operation – which they did in a clever way now.

The cybersecurity firm they’re associated with had found a flaw in the ransom payment system of DeadBolt, where their automated system would release the decryption key without properly checking the transaction and exploiting it.

As per them, the DeadBolt’s ransom system only checks for an appropriate transaction is initiated or not but ignores the network confirmations of the Bitcoin blockchain – which is essential to be actually paid. And since the system didn’t check it, the police made a ransom payment, obtained the decryption keys, and immediately canceled the transaction to get a refund.

They had obtained about 155 decryption keys in the same way before the DeadBolt group realized it was fooled and upgraded to mandate double network confirmation before releasing the decryption keys.

Well, the police in association with Responders.NU created a website by then and invited the victims of DeadBolt ransomware to get free decryption keys to unlock their files.

Other Trending News:-  News

Total
0
Shares
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post
Netflix

Netflix to launch cheap ad-supported plan in November

Next Post
Spotify May Bring HiFi Audio Support in a New Platinum Tier

Spotify May Bring HiFi Audio Support in a New Platinum Tier

Related Posts