The unprecedented spread of ransomware that has swept across more than 100 countries since Friday has been cracked by a Chinese tech company - at least in part.
自上周五开始在全球100多个国家大肆传播的勒索软件被一家中国科技公司破解——至少是部分破解。
Qihoo 360, a major internet security company in China, issued a software patch at 3 am on Sunday that can recover the data encrypted by the unidentified attackers. The software can operate without internet access, and customers do not need to pay for it.
Zheng Wenbin, the company's chief security engineer, said the recovery
kit was built around a flaw his team found in the malware.
"Some ransomware developers directly encrypt the original files. That would be hard to crack. Lucky for us, the attackers only encrypted the copy and deleted the originals. So all we need to do is find ways to recover the deleted ones," Zheng explained. "Sometimes a simple idea is the most effective."
Zheng said that in an experimental run, his software's recovery rate reached 100 percent. However, in reality, the longer a user waits before using the tool, the higher the chance is of
permanently losing some data, because the more changes a user makes to existing files, the harder it becomes to recover deleted data. This is because deleted data is not immediately
erased, but the memory space it occupies is considered free and the computer will use it to store other data.
For now, the recovery kit is in Chinese only. Zheng said he does not know if the company will provide the service in English or other languages, though he admitted that changing the user language would be "fairly easy".
By 360's estimation, at least 200,000 computers had been
breached by the malware as of 7 pm on Saturday. The number was going up quickly across the globe.
相关单词：unprecedented
unprecedented解释：adj.无前例的，新奇的
unprecedented例句：
The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。
相关单词：kit
kit解释：n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物
kit例句：
The kit consisted of about twenty cosmetic items.整套工具包括大约20种化妆用品。
The captain wants to inspect your kit.船长想检查你的行装。
相关单词：permanently
permanently解释：adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地
permanently例句：
The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。
相关单词：erased
erased解释：v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除
erased例句：
He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》
相关单词：breached
breached解释：攻破( breach的现在分词 )； 破坏，违反
breached例句：
These commitments have already been breached. 这些承诺已遭背弃。
Our tanks have breached the enemy defences. 我方坦克车突破了敌人的防线。
