LockerGoga ransomware victims are offered a free decryptor

LockerGoga ransomware victims have been given a free decryptor to retrieve their lost data without paying the threat group money. The Bitdefender cybersecurity team made the tool available for download on their servers, which will help LockerGoga victims decrypt their compromised files.

Several law enforcement authorities have teamed up with Bitdefender to develop the free decryptor, including Europol, the Zürich Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Zürich Cantonal Police, and the NoMoreRansom Project.

 

The arrest of LockerGoga ransomware operators in October last year allowed the authorities to create the decryptor.

 

Based on reports, the LockerGoga ransomware operators were arrested last year in October, which helped authorities create the working decryptor for all the group’s victims. The authorities accessed LockerGoga’s master keys during their dismantlement, which resulted in the officers not needing to identify flaws in its cryptography and directly develop the decrypting tool.

For the victims, the files that have been encrypted cannot be unlocked with any regular software. Thus, the free decryptor will help them scan their entire filesystem, locate the encrypted files, and perform the decryption process. This decryptor could also work on a single computer or several networks impacted by the ransomware.

Their computers are required to have internet access, and the ransom notes generated must be located in their original file paths. Supposedly, during the decryption process, an interruption occurred, resulting in corrupted files. In that case, the security experts said that the decrypter has a backup files option which could help users save their files.

One of the high-profile targets previously victimised by the LockerGoga group was the French engineering firm Altran Technologies. At least 1,800 firms worldwide have suffered from the attacks of the ransomware group, with most of their attacks partnered up with the Ryuk and MegaCortex threat groups.

Since the arrest of the LockerGoga operators last October 2021, other threat actors have evaded using their ransomware for cyberattacks, and its source code has never been released. The free decryptor will mostly benefit the group’s past victims, especially those that have not been able to recover their files since being targeted.