ThunderCrypt Ransomware Creators Let Taiwanese Man off the Hook Due to His Low Income

Zara Ali
WanaCrypt0r 2.0

Just when the world is panicking with the threat of ransomware hitting their computers, a man from Taiwan gets away with it. On Sunday, the hackers behind the ransomware called ThunderCrypt, reportedly gave a free pass to a man from Taiwan whose computer was attacked.

ThunderCrypt ransomware is akin to the WannaCry ransomware, which has left organisations all around the world paralysed. In an e-mail screenshot, shared by a Taiwanese man, we can see how the ThunderCrypt hackers let him off the hook considering his financial predicaments. The man wrote an e-mail to the helpline of ThunderCrypt ransomware, informing them that he only earns $400 a month and how could he pay 0.345 bitcoins (around $606). The hackers then decrypted the ransomware on his computer.

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E-mail screenshot shared by the Taiwanese man

In a reply, ThunderCrypt creators also accepted that they “largely overestimated” the income of Taiwan and their campaign in the region has been a "total failure". Apparently, Taiwan's median income was exhibited at $1,344 last year.

This act of mercy by the hackers of ThunderCrypt brings hope for the nations with low wages to get a free pass from the hack. Maybe, the creators behind WannaCry would also follow the same path of morality and let individual users off the hook. To recap, WannaCry ransomware surfaced on Friday, and since then it has hit over 100,000 firms across 150 countries. The ransomware locks the files on computers and asks for $300 (Bitcoin) for decryption.

Well, we could call this an isolated case where one target got a free pass because the creators behind ThunderCrypt were trying to be merciful, for a change. There is no way that we can assume them to act in the same way for all the individual users. The ransomware attacks are only increasing, which means users need to be extra careful until a solution comes up. WannaCry ransomware has also got upgraded, and this time it has no kill switch to "accidentally" halt its spread around the world.

We would yet again urge our users to update their system with the latest security patch by Microsoft.

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