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It is likely that they were able to compromise the bad guys' systems and steal the private keys, which in itself is against the law.

Technically yes, but in practice only if the bad guys file charges and/or assist the authorities with evidence, ie their machines.

That would be interesting. Especially the discussion of whether this is morally acceptable (ie. doing illegal things to obtain the private keys from the malware designers).

Or maybe FoxIT was behind cryptolocker all along and once the ransom money stopped pouring in they released their database to look like good guys..tinfoil hat