German security software company G DATA has released a vaccine that will block STOP Ransomware from encrypting victims’ files after infection.
This tool does not prevent the infection itself. STOP ransomware will still place ransom notes and may change settings on the systems, G DATA malware analysts Karsten Hahn and John Parol explained.
But STOP ransomware will not encrypt files anymore if the system has the vaccine. Instead of a personal ID, the ransom notes will contain a string that files were protected by the vaccine.
This vaccine may cause your security software to believe your system is infected since it works by adding files the malware usually deploys on infected systems to trick the ransomware the device was already compromised.
While a decryptor was also released for STOP Ransomware in October 2019 by Emsisoft and Michael Gillespie to decrypt files encrypted by 148 variants for free, it no longer works with newer variants. Hence, G DATA’s vaccine is your best bet if you want protection against this ransomware strain.