13 countries join global ransomware fight
Just three months after the successful launch of the No More Ransom project, law enforcement agencies from a further 13 countries have signed up to fight ransomware together with the private sector.
The new members are: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Colombia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. More law enforcement agencies and private sector organisations are expected to join the programme in the coming months. Their collaboration will result in more free decryption tools becoming available, helping even more victims to decrypt their devices and unlock their information, and damaging the cybercriminals where it hurts the most: their wallets.
The project’s objectives are supported by Eurojust and the European Commission, demonstrating the EU’s concern about the growing threat of ransomware.
Global ransomware fight
No More Ransom was launched on 25 July 2016, by the Dutch National Police, Europol, Intel Security and Kaspersky Lab, introducing a new level of cooperation between law enforcement and the private sector to fight ransomware together.
During the first two months, more than 2,500 people have successfully managed to decrypt their devices without having to pay the criminals, using the main decryption tools on the platform (CoinVault, WildFire and Shade). This has deprived cybercriminals of an estimated EUR 1.35 million in ransoms.
The more law enforcement agencies and private sector partners work together, the more decryption tools can be created and made available. Currently, five decryption tools are listed on the website.
Since the launch of the portal in July, the WildfireDecryptor has been added and two decryption tools updated: RannohDecryptor (updated with a decryptor for the ransomware MarsJoke aka Polyglot) and RakhniDecryptor (updated with Chimera).
Europol support
“Europol is fully committed to supporting the enlargement of the No More Ransom project within the EU and internationally to respond to ransomware in an effective and concerted manner,” says Steven Wilson, head of the European Cybercrime Centre. “Despite the increasing challenges, the initiative has demonstrated that a coordinated approach by EU law enforcement that includes all relevant partners can result in significant successes in fighting this type of crime, focusing on the important areas of prevention and awareness. I am confident that the online portal will continue to improve in the months to come. All police forces are warmly encouraged to join the fight.”
In order to broaden the audience and improve results even further, the portal is currently being adapted to support different language versions.
As a second step, the project will welcome new companies from the private sector as well, after a very high level of interest and countless requests received.