WannaCry can be unlocked without ransom: French researchers

Looks like, we may have finally got a way-around WannaCry without shelling out any bitcoins. A group of French researchers have claimed to have found a ‘last-chance way’ for technicians to unlock their Windows files encrypted by WannaCry without paying any ransom, reports Reuters.

 WannaCry ransomware that has been wreaking havoc across globe since last friday, infecting over 300,000 computers in 150 nations threatens to lock out victims who have not paid a sum of $300 to $600 within one week of infection.

Apparently, a team of researchers spread across the world had been collaborating with each other to find alternative means to getting access to computers affected by the ransomware. However, the workaround is no panacea and works only in certain conditions. Firsly, computers should not have been rebooted since becoming infected and secondly if victims applied the fix before WannaCry carried out its threat to lock their files permanently.

Adrien Guinet, a security expert;  Matthieu Suiche, an internationally known hacker; and Benjamin Delpy, are among the people who have worked together to sort the issue out. The tool they have managed to develop is called wanakiwi, and is a freeware.

Suiche has also published a blog with technical details summarising what they have built to share with organisations infected by WannaCry. The tool works with Windows 7, XP and 2003, that much has been confirmed. However, the developers believe that it could well also work with Windows 2008 and Vista — leaving out Windows 10, which is already protected by a patch pushed out by Microsoft in March.

As Suiche says, “this is not a perfect solution, but this is so far the only workable solution to help enterprises to recover their files if they have been infected and have no back-ups.”