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Tool Aids in Cracking Mysterious Gauss Malware Encryption

JB

The mystery wrapped inside a riddle that is the Gauss malware’s encryption scheme may be closer to falling. Late last week, researcher Jens Steube, known as Atom, put the wraps on a tool that should bring experts closer to breaking open the encryption surrounding the espionage malware’s payload.

The tool, called oclGaussCrack, accelerates the process of calculating the hash value of Gauss’ known cipher scheme, Steube said.

“If it matches, we know we have used the correct key and we can use it to decrypt the encrypted payload,” Steube said. “This process is very time-consuming since it takes a lot of calculations. It is so many that we cannot simply brute-force the key. We need a targeted attack to crack it.”