Decrypting Files Encrypted by CryptoLocker Now Costs 0.5 Bitcoins

The cybercriminals behind the CryptoLocker ransomware have lowered the price of decryption to 0.5 Bitcoins. That doesn’t mean they want less money, but with the recent increase in the price of Bitcoins, they had to adapt the amount they were asking for.

Researchers from F-Secure noticed the change in a variant of CryptoLocker that was making the rounds on November 20. Initially, the cybercriminals were asking for 2 Bitcoins to have the files decrypted.

Victims who refuse to pay the ransom in 72 hours can still get their files back by accessing the Decryption Service provided by the cybercriminals. However, it costs much more than it does if the payment is made within 72 hours.

Authorities in the United Kingdom reported that millions of people have already received the emails that distribute CryptoLocker.

In the US, at least one organization, the Swansea Police Department, has agreed to pay the ransom in order to recover its files.

Earlier this month, researchers from Bitdefender reverse engineered the domain generation algorithm used by CryptoLocker and sinkholed several domains. Between October 27 and November 1, a total of over 12,000 computers were infected, most of which from the US.

“Cryptolocker servers are changed very often – it is rare that a command and control server remains online for more than a week. During the monitored period, command and control servers were located in Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine – but this is simply an indication of the controllers’ predilection for constant ‘server-hopping’,” researchers noted.

Bitdefender has released a small tool called Bitdefender Anti-CryptoLocker that’s designed to protect computers against CryptoLocker infections. You can download Bitdefender Anti-CryptoLocker from Softpedia.

Many antivirus solutions should be able to block CryptoLocker before it can encrypt files. However, experts say that the best way to protect yourself against the threat is to make sure you don’t click on suspicious links, and make regular backups of your most important files.