Security company Fox-IT is one of the companies that has been involved in the consortium of security companies attempting cracking the current version of Crytolocker and has reported its remarkable success to the BBC.
Cryptolocker is the widely reported ransomware that silently encrypts users' data with military grade encryption before demanding payment to decrypt the data. The program is particularly invidious as it targets files likely to be most important to the user such as pictures and document files.
The FBI has identified Russian man Evgeniy Bogachev as the ringleader behind Cryptolocker and online banking malware Gameover Zeus but as yet been unable to take action against him.
Not only has security consortium now cracked Cryptolocker but they've managed to work out all the keys and placed a new service online which will reveal the codes for free. This enables all of the estimated 500,000 infected users to recover all their data without paying the ransom to the malware distributors.
Anyone wishing to use the free decryption service can visit http://www.decryptcryptolocker.com/ and get their decryption key for free.
The BBC discusses this story further here.
