No More Ransom
The No More Ransom portal is a non-commercial initiative by the National High Tech Crime Unit of the Netherlands’ police, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and two cyber security companies – Kaspersky Lab and Intel Security – with the goal to help victims of ransomware retrieve their encrypted data without having to pay the criminals.
Mission
No More Ransom is a public-private initiative launched on 25 July 2016 which created a common portal (www.nomoreransom.org) which contains, among others:
- Available decryption tools for some of the existing ransomware families (offered by the project partners to the victims, free of charge),
- Tips and advice to prevent users from becoming a victim (educational and awareness material),
- Direct links to the national police agencies of the EU Member States to encourage the citizens to report the cases (one of the common problems law enforcement faces with this phenomenon is the lack of information to investigate further).
Development
Law enforcement, IT security companies and other partners from public and private sectors have joined forces to disrupt ransomware cybercriminal businesses.
In its first stage, the project was proposed as a shared project between Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the Dutch police and two partners from the private sector: Kaspersky Lab and Intel Security.
Since its launch, two types of membership have been created: Associated (for those contributing with new decryption tools) and Supporting (for those joining in the awareness efforts), new decryption tools added as well as content translated to other languages than English.
Expected outcomes
- To provide a helpful online resource for the public, where visitors can find information on what ransomware is, how it works and, most importantly, how to protect themselves.
- To provide visitors with devices infected with ransomware with a tool that may help them recover their data once it has been locked by criminals.