Hackers retire Troldesh ransomware and release 750,000 decryption keys
The team behind the malware has mysteriously shut it down just months after spearheading an explosion in activity


A prominent hacking outfit that deployed the ransomware known as Shade, or Troldesh, to devastating effect has “irrevocably destroyed” the Trojan and released 750,000 decryption keys.
The cyber criminals behind the malware confirmed they retired the prominent ransomware towards the end of last year after six years of activity and have apologised to victims, offering no explanation as to why. An expert with Kaspersky has confirmed the decryption keys as being genuine.
The Trojan, which made up 6% of all ransomware attacks in 2017, experienced a massive increase in detections from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of 2019, spiking in February last year, according to Malwarebytes. This was among the most, if not the most, widely distributed malware in the first half of the year.
Those spearheading Troldesh campaigns, however, have now unexpectedly released 750,000 decryption keys, as well as its “decryption soft”, in the hope that cyber security companies can develop intuitive decryption tools.
“We are the team which created a trojan-encryptor mostly known as Shade, Troldesh or Encoder.858. In fact, we stopped its distribution in the end of 2019,” the now-former hackers said in a GitHub post. “Now we made a decision to put the last point in this story and to publish all the decryption keys we have (over 750 thousands at all).
“All other data related to our activity (including the source codes of the trojan) was irrevocably destroyed. We apologize to all the victims of the trojan and hope that the keys we published will help them to recover their data.”
RELATED RESOURCE
Decade of the RATs - remote access trojans
Cross-platform APT espionage attacks targeting Linux, Windows and Android
Troldesh typically spread through malicious email attachments, normally zip files presented as something the victim must open quickly. The extracted zip was a Javasript that then downloaded the payload, which was hosted on sites with a compromised content management system (CMS).
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
The ransomware is thought to have been organised by Russian hackers, given the notes were often written in both English and Russian.
The cyber criminal group has offered no explanation as to why it decided to shut down its ransomware towards the end of 2019.
It’s impossible not to draw associations with the fact that Troldesh activity exploded suddenly and exponentially earlier in the year, well beyond recorded levels since it was first spotted in 2014.

Keumars Afifi-Sabet is a writer and editor that specialises in public sector, cyber security, and cloud computing. He first joined ITPro as a staff writer in April 2018 and eventually became its Features Editor. Although a regular contributor to other tech sites in the past, these days you will find Keumars on LiveScience, where he runs its Technology section.
-
How to implement a four-day week in tech
In-depth More companies are switching to a four-day week as they look to balance employee well-being with productivity
-
Intelligence sharing: The boost for businesses
In-depth Intelligence sharing with peers is essential if critical sectors are to be protected
-
Hackers breached a 158 year old company by guessing an employee password – experts say it’s a ‘pertinent reminder’ of the devastating impact of cyber crime
News A Panorama documentary exposed hackers' techniques and talked to the teams trying to tackle them
-
The ransomware boom shows no signs of letting up – and these groups are causing the most chaos
News Thousands of ransomware cases have already been posted on the dark web this year
-
Everything we know about the Ingram Micro cyber attack so far
News A cyber attack on Ingram Micro severely disrupted operations and has been claimed by the SafePay ransomware group.
-
A prolific ransomware group says it’s shutting down and giving out free decryption keys to victims – but cyber experts warn it's not exactly a 'gesture of goodwill'
News The Hunters International ransomware group is rebranding and switching tactics
-
Swiss government data published following supply chain attack – here’s what we know about the culprits
News Radix, a non-profit organization in the health promotion sector, supplies a number of federal offices, whose data has apparently been accessed.
-
Ransomware victims are getting better at haggling with hackers
News While nearly half of companies paid a ransom to get their data back last year, victims are taking an increasingly hard line with hackers to strike fair deals.
-
LockBit data dump reveals a treasure trove of intel on the notorious hacker group
News An analysis of May's SQL database dump shows how much LockBit was really making
-
‘I take pleasure in thinking I can rid society of at least some of them’: A cyber vigilante is dumping information on notorious ransomware criminals – and security experts say police will be keeping close tabs
News An anonymous whistleblower has released large amounts of data allegedly linked to the ransomware gangs