WannaCry ransomware has taken the world by storm in the last few days even as the affected organisations are exploring ways to negotiate a deal with the hackers and secure the stolen data. The exorbitant ransomware demands are said to be going upwards of $300 to $600 per machine for decrypting its data.
I got to finish the full decryption process, but I confirm that, in this case, the private key can recovered on an XP system #wannacry!! pic.twitter.com/QiB3Q1NYpS
— Adrien Guinet (@adriengnt) May 18, 2017
Nevertheless, victims of WannaCry can now bank on a third-party decrypting tool called "Wannakey", which enables affected users to decrypt or patch the ransomware attack on Windows. The decryption tool removes the encryption key from the affected system's memory by injecting a decryption code to restore the data back to normalcy.
The tool has been created by Adrien Guinet, a French researcher from Quarkslab. He has posted the source code and the tool on GitHub to enable the victims to take advantage of its benefits.
Here's what the developer of Wannakey had to say about his tool on the GitHub page:
This software has only been tested and known to work under Windows XP. In order to work, your computer must not have been rebooted after being infected. Please also note that you need some luck for this to work (see below), and so it might not work in every cases!"
Although this tool is expected to work only in specific scenarios, there is no harm in giving it a shot as the tool is available for free download.
Check out the GitHub source page here for more details and the download link for Wannakey. Note: The software is currently tested and known to work fine with Windows XP only. Your computer must not be rebooted after being infected in order to get this tool working.
