Researchers with Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender released a free decryptor that allows to recover files encrypted by the MortalKombat ransomware first spotted in January 2023.
Based on the older Xorist ransomware strain MortalKombat spreads through phishing emails and targets exposed RDP instances. The ransomware is deployed via BatLoader malware that also delivers the Laplas Clipper malware.
MortalKombat has been deployed in recent attacks conducted by an unnamed financially motivated threat actor as a part of a phishing campaign aimed at a wide range of organizations, according to a report from Cisco Talos.
“MortalKombat encrypts various files on the victim machine's filesystem, such as system, application, database, backup, and virtual machine files, as well as files on the remote locations mapped as logical drives in the victim's machine,” Cisco Talos noted.
Earlier this year, Czech anti-virus maker Avast released a free decryptor for victims of the BianLian ransomwareto help them recover their files without paying a ransom.