The virus encrypted all files. What to do in this situation?

Has it ever happened that you received a message from an unknown sender with a link to your friend's photo or a congratulation on the upcoming holiday on your Email, Skype or ICQ? It seems that you do not expect any setup, and suddenly when you click on the link to the computer, you download a serious malicious software. You do not have time to recover, as the virus has already encrypted all the files. What to do in this situation? Is it possible to restore documents?

In order to understand how to deal with a malicious program, you need to know what it is and how it gets into the operating system. In addition, it does not matter which version of Windows you use - the Critroni virus is aimed at infecting any operating system.

Cipher Computer Virus: Definition and Algorithm of Action

On the Internet, a new computer virus software, known to many as CTB (Curve Tor Bitcoin) or Critroni, has appeared. This is an advanced Trojan-extortionist, similar in principle to the algorithm with the previously known malicious software CriptoLocker. If the virus has encrypted all the files, what should I do? First of all, it is necessary to understand the algorithm of its operation. The essence of the action of the virus is to encrypt all your files in extensions .ctbl, .ctb2, .vault, .xtbl or others. In this case, you can not open them until you pay the requested amount of money.

Viruses Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Shade and Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Onion are common. They are very similar to PTS with their local action. They can be distinguished by the extension of encrypted files. Trojan-Ransom encodes information in the .xtbl format. When you open any file, a message appears on the screen stating that your personal documents, databases, photos and other files have been encrypted by a malicious program. To decrypt them, you must pay a unique key that is stored on a secret server and only in this case you can decrypt and cryptographic actions with your documents. But do not worry, let alone send money to this number, there is another way to deal with this kind of cybercrime. If your computer got such a virus, it encrypted all .xtbl files, what to do in this situation?

What not to do when a cryptographic virus penetrates the computer

It happens that in a panic we install an antivirus program and with its help in automatic or manual mode we delete the virus software, losing with it important documents. This is unpleasant, in addition, the computer can store data over which you worked for months. It's a shame to lose such documents without the possibility of their restoration.

If the virus encrypts all .xtbl files, some try to change their extension, but this also does not lead to positive results. Reinstalling the operating system and formatting the hard disk will permanently remove the malicious program, but with it you will lose all the ability to restore documents. In this situation, specially created decryption programs will not help either, because the soft-extortioner is programmed according to a non-standard algorithm and requires a special approach.

Than the virus-extortioner for a personal computer is dangerous

It is clear that no malicious program will not benefit your personal computer. Why create such a software? Strangely enough, such programs were created not only to lure users of as much money as possible. In fact, viral marketing is quite beneficial to many antivirus inventors. After all, if the virus encrypted all the files on your computer, where do you go first? Naturally, for the help of professionals. What are encryption viruses dangerous for your laptop or personal computer?

The algorithm of their operation is nonstandard, so it will not be possible to disinfect infected files with conventional anti-virus software. Removing malicious objects will result in data loss. Only moving to quarantine will make it possible to secure other files that the malignant virus has not yet managed to encrypt.

The duration of encryption malware

If your computer infected Critroni (malware) and the virus encrypted all the files, what should I do? .vault-, .xtbl-, .rar-formats can not be decrypted by yourself, manually changing the extension to .doc, .mp3, .txt and others. In the event that within 96 hours you do not pay the right amount to cybercriminals, you will be intimidated by correspondence by mail that all your files will be permanently deleted. In most cases, people are exposed to such threats, and they are reluctant, but obediently perform these actions, fearing to lose precious information. It's a pity users do not understand the fact that cybercriminals are not always true to their word. Having received the money, they often do not worry about decrypting your blocked files.

When the malicious program timer expires, it automatically closes. But you still have a chance to restore important documents. A message will appear on the screen indicating that the time has elapsed and you can view more detailed information about the files in the documents folder in the specially created DecryptAllFiles.txt notepad.

Ways of penetration of cryptographic malware into the operating system

Usually, cryptographic viruses penetrate the computer through infected messages that are sent to e-mail or through fake downloads. These can be fake flash updates or rogue video players. Once the program is downloaded to the computer by any of these methods, it immediately encrypts the data without being able to recover it. If the virus encrypted all the .cbf, .ctbl, .ctb2 files in other formats and you do not have a backup of the document stored on removable media, consider that you will not be able to restore them. At the moment, anti-virus labs do not know how to crack such encryption viruses. Without the required key, you can only block infected files, move them to quarantine, or delete them.

How to Avoid Infecting Your Computer with a Virus

The ominous virus encrypted all the .xtbl files. What to do? You have already reread a lot of unnecessary information, which is written on most websites, and the answer is not found. It happens that at the most inopportune moment, when you urgently need to take a report at work, graduate in university or defend your professorship, the computer begins to live its life: it breaks down, becomes infected with viruses, hangs. You should be prepared for such situations and keep the information on the server and removable media. This will allow at any time to reinstall the operating system and after 20 minutes to work at the computer, as if nothing had happened. But, unfortunately, we are not always so enterprising.

To avoid infection of the computer with a virus, first of all it is necessary to install a good antivirus program. You must have a properly configured Windows Firewall that protects against the ingress of various malicious objects through the Network. And most importantly: do not download software from untested sites, torrent trackers. To avoid infection of the computer with virus programs, keep track of which links you are migrating to. If you received an email from an incomprehensible addressee with a request or an offer to see what the link is hidden, it's best to move the message to spam or delete it altogether.

To prevent the virus from encrypting all the .xtbl files, the anti-virus software labs recommend a free way to protect against infection with encryption viruses: once a week, back up data and view their status.

The virus encrypted all files on the computer: the ways of treatment

If you became a victim of cybercrime and the data on your computer were infected with one of the encryption types of malware, then it's time to try to restore the files.

There are several ways of free treatment of infected documents:

1. The most common method, and probably the most effective at the moment, is the backup of documents and subsequent recovery in the event of an unexpected infection.
2. Software file recovery. The CTB virus algorithm works in an interesting way. Once in the computer, it copies the files, encrypts them, and deletes the original documents, thereby excluding the possibility of their recovery. But with the help of software software Photorec or R-Studio, you can have time to save some untouched original files. You should be aware that the longer you use the computer after infection, the less likely it is that all the necessary documents will be restored.
3. If the virus encrypted all the .vault files, there is another good way to decrypt them - using shadow volumes of copies. Of course, the virus will try forever and permanently delete them all, but it also happens that some files remain untouched. In this case, you will have though small, but a chance of their restoration.
4. It is possible to store data on file sharing services, such as DropBox. It can be installed on the computer as a local disk display. Naturally, the encryption virus will also infect it. But in this case it is much more realistic to restore documents and important files.

Software prevention of virus infection of a personal computer

If you are afraid of getting ominous malicious software on your computer and do not want the insidious virus to encrypt all files, you should use the local policy editor or Windows group. Thanks to this integrated software, you can configure the software restriction policy - and then you will not be bothered by thoughts about infection of the computer.

How to recover infected files

If the CTB virus has encrypted all the files, what can I do in this case to recover the necessary documents? Unfortunately, at the present time, no antivirus laboratory can offer decryption of your files, but neutralizing the infection, its complete removal from a personal computer is possible. Above all effective methods of information recovery are indicated. If your files are too expensive, and you do not bother to make a backup copy on a removable media or Internet drive, then you have to pay the amount of money requested by cybercriminals. But there is no probability that you will be sent a decryption key even after payment.

How to find infected files

To see the list of infected files, you can go in the following way: "My Documents" \. Html or "C:" \ "Users \" All Users \ .html. This html-list contains data not only about random instructions, but also about infected objects.

How to block a cryptographic virus

Once the computer has been infected with malicious software, the first necessary action on the part of the user is to enable the safe mode with the network. This is done by pressing the keyboard key F10.

If your computer accidentally got a Critroni virus, it encrypted all the files in .rar, .ctbl, .ctb2, .xtbl, .vault, .cbf or any other format, in which case it's already hard to restore them. But if the virus has not managed to make a lot of changes, there is a possibility of blocking it with the policy of restricted access of programs.