Akira ransomware can be cracked with sixteen RTX 4090 GPUs in around ten hours

I'm sure they'll be updating the encryption to something more difficult to crack instead of lowering the ransom demand to beat cloud server prices. I'd rather pay more to a server farm and wait days to get my data back than give any reward to the asshole scammers who locked it away.

Can someone smarter than me clarify if this also means a single 4090 can crack it in about 160 hours? Or are there a lot of other efficiencies gained by adding multiple GPUs together?

Linked in the article, but the post describing the details is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinyhack.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;13&#x2F;decrypting-encrypted-files-from-akira-ransomware-linux-esxi-variant-2024-using-a-bunch-of-gpus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinyhack.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;13&#x2F;decrypting-encrypted-files-f...</a>

I always wondered if ransomware is making some compromises in security so it can encrypt the disk so quickly and covertly.

So... what is the estimated cost to find the key using AWS H100 or similar service?

Interesting. I thought crypto lockers were kinda extinct though because most companies have their backup ducks in a row now so threat actors tend to go for blackmail of data exposure now.<p>Also, most XDRs detect this behaviour really well now.

Posted 3 days ago <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43365083">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43365083</a>