Bitdefender releases new version of GandCrab decrypter

For the third time, the Bitdefender team, together with the Romanian police and Europol, have released a free decrypter to help victims of the GandCrab-ransomware decrypt their documents. This in turn helps a lot of people who are unexpectedly victims of the ransomware.

The latest version of the Bitdefender GandCrab Decryption Tool can unlock documents from GandCrab versions 5.0.4 to 5.1. These versions of the malware have been active since November 2018 and are still in use today. New victims can therefore defend themselves well against the malware, especially now that it seems that the number of attacks has intensified.

Wide range

The Bitdefender GandCrab Decryption Tool can decrypt virtually all documents encrypted by GandCrab, except for versions 2.x and 3.x. The new decrypter comes at just the right time, because the GandCrab malware is central to a number of malware campaigns and also to targeted attacks. We estimate that GandCrab owns 40 percent of the ransomware market, according to a Bitdefender spokesperson versus the ZDNet site.

More recently, hackers attacked companies that provide IT support from a distance and infected workstations of consumers of those companies using the remote management tools. These victims had to pay a ransom to get their equipment free, but that is no longer necessary. According to Bitdefender, the tool has so far been used by more than 10,000 victims and has saved five million dollars in ransom money.

New version

Bitdefender experts say they expect GandCrab developers to release new versions soon. That’s what happened last time. In October, the previous tool was published by Bitdefender and a new version of the malware followed a day later.

Of course, these tools are useful afterwards, but the best thing to do is simply to make good backups of all systems. This way the malware can also be removed by formatting a hard drive. A free decrypter like this often takes some time.