# aguinet/wannakey

Wannacry in-memory key recovery

Repository: https://github.com/aguinet/wannakey
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/wannakey
Language: C++
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2017-06-03T10:39:37+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3394, "days_push": 3378, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1091, forks 147 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:33.347924+00:00)

## What it is
A C++ tool that recovers the RSA private key prime numbers generated by the WannaCry ransomware from the wcry.exe process memory. It exploits the fact that Windows XP-era CryptoAPI does not erase key material from memory after release.

## Use cases
- recover wannacry decryption key from infected windows xp machine
- decrypt files encrypted by wannacry without paying ransom
- extract rsa prime numbers from ransomware process memory
- check if wannakey technique can work on a running windows os
- analyze wannacry key generation for security research

## When to choose
- you have an un-rebooted Windows XP/7 x86 machine infected with WannaCry
- you need to recover WannaCry-encrypted files without paying the ransom
- you are researching ransomware memory artifacts

## When to avoid
- the infected machine has been rebooted since encryption
- the system is Windows 10 or newer where memory is cleaned up
- you need a general-purpose ransomware decryption tool

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: security, cryptography
- domain: security, windows
- platform: windows, cpp
- tags: ransomware, wannacry, incident-response, forensics, memory-scanning

## Member repositories
- aguinet/wannakey (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:33.347924+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:49:06.453595+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/aguinet/wannakey (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:33.347924+00:00, sha 515e5fd3c3b6)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.