A Method for Decrypting Data Infected with Hive Ransomware

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method to decrypt data infected with Hive ransomware by analyzing its encryption process and recovering the master key, enabling data recovery without the attacker’s private key.

Contribution

We analyzed Hive ransomware's encryption algorithm and successfully recovered 95% of the master key, enabling decryption of infected data for the first time.

Findings

Recovered 95% of the master key

Successfully decrypted infected data

Identified vulnerabilities in Hive ransomware encryption

Abstract

Among the many types of malicious codes, ransomware poses a major threat. Ransomware encrypts data and demands a ransom in exchange for decryption. As data recovery is impossible if the encryption key is not obtained, some companies suffer from considerable damage, such as the payment of huge amounts of money or the loss of important data. In this paper, we analyzed Hive ransomware, which appeared in June 2021. Hive ransomware has caused immense harm, leading the FBI to issue an alert about it. To minimize the damage caused by Hive Ransomware and to help victims recover their files, we analyzed Hive Ransomware and studied recovery methods. By analyzing the encryption process of Hive ransomware, we confirmed that vulnerabilities exist by using their own encryption algorithm. We have recovered the master key for generating the file encryption key partially, to enable the decryption of data encrypted by Hive ransomware. We recovered 95% of the master key without the attacker's RSA private key and decrypted the actual infected data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first successful attempt at decrypting Hive ransomware. It is expected that our method can be used to reduce the damage caused by Hive ransomware.