The victim of a bitcoin ransomware scheme managed to get revenge on his assailants by hacking them for their decryption database.
Ransomware Victim Gets Revenge
German programmer Tobias Frömel was the victim of a crypto-ransomware attack that forced him to pay criminals bitcoin in order to unlock access to his computer files. In retaliation, Frömel was able to hack the database of his assailants, thereby freeing up the decryption keys to assist others affected by the scheme.
As outlined by Frömel in a forum post on BleepingComputer, his counter-hack was technically illegal but done in good faith for the broader community.
i hacked back this criminal and get the whole database with keys, here it is…and yeah, i know it was not legal from me too but he used already hacked servers with several webshells on it… and im not the bad guy here :D.
The German programmer posted the database of decryption keys as well as steps for users who were affected by the ransomware. Frömel claimed to have lost 670 euros in paying the ransom to gain access to his computer files but posted his BTC address for philanthropic forum-goers to support his anti-hacking efforts.
