Communications of the ACM
Extortion Extinction: Researchers Develop a Way to Stop Ransomware
Researchers at the University of Florida have developed a system to thwart ransomware.
Credit: australian anthill
University of Florida (UF) researchers have developed CryptoDrop, a system they say can thwart ransomware.
CryptoDrop does not prevent ransomware from starting, but it prevents malware from completing its task. "So you lose only a couple of pictures or a couple of documents rather than everything that's on your hard drive, and it relieves you of the burden of having to pay the ransom," says UF doctoral student Nolen Scaife, a founding member of UF's Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research.
The UF team describes CryptoDrop as an early-warning system, and says its results have been impressive. During a run against several hundred ransomware samples that were live, CryptoDrop detected 100 percent of the samples, and it did so after only an average of 10 files were encrypted, according to Scaife.
The team also says CryptoDrop works seamlessly with antivirus software. "About one-tenth of 1 percent of the files were lost, but the advantage is that it's flexible," says UF professor Patrick Traynor. "We don't have to wait for that antivirus update. If you have a new version of your ransomware, our system can detect that."
From University of Florida News
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