Security News > 2021 > July > No More Ransom: We Prevented Ransomware Operators From Earning $1 Billion
No More Ransom is celebrating its 5th anniversary and the project says it has helped more than 6 million ransomware victims recover their files and prevented cybercriminals from earning roughly $1 billion.
No More Ransom is a joint effort of law enforcement and cybersecurity companies whose goal is to help victims of ransomware attacks recover their files without having to pay the ransom demanded by criminals.
Launched in July 2016, the project currently has 170 partners and it provides more than 120 free tools from Emsisoft, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Bitdefender, Avast, and several other cybersecurity firms, as well as a few government agencies.
According to Europol, the free recovery tools offered by No More Ransom have been downloaded more than 6 million times, and the project estimates that it has prevented cybercriminals from making approximately $1 billion.
The No More Ransom website is available in 37 languages and most of the users who visited the website came from South Korea, the United States, India, China and Indonesia.
In addition to decryption tools, the website, which was re-designed for its 5th anniversary, hosts prevention advice and a ransomware Q&A. Users can quickly learn if any of the tools provided by No More Ransom are useful to them through the site's Crypto Sheriff feature, which determines the type of ransomware based on encrypted files, the ransom note, email addresses, URLs or cryptocurrency wallet addresses.