Tech firm hit by giant ransomware hack gets key to unlock victims’ data

The software company at the center of a huge ransomware attack this month has obtained a universal key to unlock files of the hundreds of businesses and public organizations crippled by the hack.

Nineteen days after the initial attack over the Fourth of July weekend, the Florida-based IT management provider, Kaseya, has received the universal key that can unlock the scrambled data of all the attack’s victims, bringing the worst of the fallout to a close.

The so-called supply-chain attack on Kaseya is being labeled the worst ransomware attack to date because it spread through software that companies, known as managed service providers, use to administer multiple customer networks, delivering software updates and security patches.

It affected 800 to 2,000 businesses and organizations – including supermarkets in Sweden and schools in New Zealand whose systems were frozen for days.

News of the key comes after the Russia-linked criminal syndicate that supplied the malware, REvil, disappeared from the internet on 13 July.

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