I got this through a contact. In case one day you fall victim to one of the multiple ransomwares circulating out there.
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Nice to see that the Dutch police is participating on this project!
Ransomware should really be exterminated but as long as people pay - new variants will keep up coming.
So great list of tools to assist!
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Yep. Dutch law enforcement and Europol(I know a few guys here) are championing this project but it’s open for other agencies to join and I hope they do. I guess it all started in The Hague.
Hopefully this project gets attention so people understand they shouldn’t pay and that they might be able to recover their data with this growing list of tools.
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I remember the first round of Ransomware must be twelve - fourteen years back. Lot of folk think its a relatively modern attack. My brother is a self-employed painter and decorator, took over the family business from my dad. All his estimates and accounts were on his PC. One of the kids was trying to print off some pictures but the printer was not working. He downloaded a driver, or what he thought was a driver, for HP printers. Installed it. Few hours later I got a call saying he couldn’t open his estimates or any document or file but the computer was running. Upon my arrival I sat down at his desk to see all the files had crazy extension, no icons all were blank. Tried to open the files but were just gibberish. Tried renaming them replacing .xyz with .doc… Opened them up again, still gibberish. Was a total disaster for him. In truth it nearly destroyed the business that had been in the family for thirty odd years. At that point had never seen anything like it, well not something so destructive in the SOHO workspace that’s for sure. Was astonished by it. Its cruel and unkind to small business. Suffice to say my brother is very cautious these days. The No More Ransomware Project is amazing. It really needs public funding and to be publicised on television and in print. Public Service Announcements about its presence so the average family know its out there. Like I said, amazing project!
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When I was posting this I was thinking to myself. I am pretty sure Dave has some story related to ransomware. You never disappoint! Although I didn’t expect it to touch you so close.
Did he recover the files or did he resort to some full/partial backup(even if it was on paper)?
I just send a few hours ago the link to the security officer in my company. He was pretty happy to learn something like this exists.
The company is terrified with the possibility that something like this happens to us.
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Lol makes me sound like a BIG-head @JonL
No he lost everything in that circumstance and was quite devastating as the Inland Revenue (Tax man) took no pity on him. He is a simple bloke so understanding what had happened was difficult. The kids have grown up now and work for him (well one of the daughters). She is on top of everything for him tech-wise. Ironically the same daughter that was trying to print off the My Little Pony pictures!
You are clearly a smart guy that has seen world and comes across as honest. I wouldn’t be too worried about it 
So no disapproval from my side.
Sorry to hear that about the family business. Had to be a hard time indeed. I am glad that it seems they managed to keep the head above the water and now he has some help on the tech side.
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You're too kind mate. I appreciate the sentiment.
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When you have a parallel thought train running…
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Very useful information. I have a client that is wanting to harden down their network against this. Some good information here. Thanks
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