Crypt0 Ransomware

Crypt0 Ransomware could be your next worst nightmare but this time you should be thankful to the “heavens of the virtual world” because this threat is rather a serious warning for you and may not end in a disaster. Most ransomware infections can cause severe damage to you by encrypting your files, thus making them inaccessible and unusable. However, this piece of malicious software seems to be the works of total amateurs since the code is quite poorly written. As a matter of fact, even if this ransomware encrypts all your .exe files, there is a way out other than paying the ransom fee to these crooks. The good news is that we have found a working tool on the web that can help you recover your files. Therefore, we do not advise you to contact these criminals or to pay up. On the contrary, we suggest that you remove Crypt0 Ransomware immediately so that you can start restoring your computer. There is no other way for you to do so because with every reboot you risk another encryption. Please read on to find out more about this pseudo-dangerous ransomware infection and how you could avoid similar threats.

Just because you could be in the luck by being struck by this malware program, it does not mean that it cannot cause you problems. First of all, you need to understand how this threat managed to appear on your computer. While you may think that this infection has entered your system in a mysterious way, you should know that the only way for this threat to be able to infiltrate your computer is with your help actually. This means that you need to open a spam e-mail, download its attachment, and open it to initiate this attack. You may not even recall opening a spam message because today’s criminals use sophisticated tricks to convince you to want to see the content, i.e., the attached file. This can be done by the use of made-up sender e-mail addresses that can make you believe that the mails have come from trustworthy sources or, at least, you do not feel any doubt about them. Another trick is the subject of these mails that can be anything regarding your credit card details, a hotel or flight booking gone wrong, an urgent unpaid invoice, or something else that could raise your eyebrows. Have you got any mails recently that match these possible subjects?

If you want to defend your system from ransomware threats, you should be more cautious when opening e-mails and their attachments. Because while you may think that you are going to see an allegedly unpaid invoice document, you may download a malicious text file that has a macro code that, once enabled, will download this or any other ransomware infections silently in the background. What you will notice is only the fact that within a minute you cannot use your files since they will all be encrypted. If you want to save your computer, you should delete Crypt0 Ransomware right away and restore your files.

As we have already explained, when you run the downloaded file, it will install and activate this threat in the background. We have found that it places its executable file “crypt0-Encrypt.exe” in the “%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\” folder if you have Windows XP or “%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\” if you have Windows Vista or later versions. This means that this infection will start up and run every time you restart your computer. That is why it is so important that you remove Crypt0 Ransomware if you do not want your files to get encrypted again and again making it impossible for you to use your machine.

This ransomware only seems to target “.exe” files. However, it leaves Microsoft-signed files alone, i.e., it does not encrypt “%WINDIR%” folder and other related programs, such as Internet Explorer. We have found that this infection does not add a new extension to the encrypted files, but, instead, it adds “_crypt0” to the file names itself, for example “myimage_crypt0.jpg.” Unlike most other ransomware programs, this threat does not lock your screen with a scary ransom note message or image, but it drops a text file called "HELP_DECRYPT.TXT" in every affected folder. Therefore, you will only know what has hit your computer when you open this file.

This ransom note informs you that your files have been encrypted with RSA-2048, which is a serious encryption algorithm that is part of the Windows operating system. The whole process of encryption could take as little as 20 seconds so that leaves you no time to react even if you realize that your programs are not starting up. You are supposed to send an e-mail to “fndimaf@gmail.com” if you want to ever use your files again to get the private key and the decryption program. Of course, you have to pay a certain amount of money to get these, which is not detailed in this note. It is most likely that you have to transfer the money to a Bitcoin wallet and the amount could be anything between 0.1 and 1 BTC (61 to 610 US dollars). However, in this case you do not even need to think about risking to pay because this threat is the work of some amateur authors. Although this ransomware has just hit the web only recently, there is already an available free tool to recover your files. We do not recommend that you search for and download this file yourself, let alone use it if you are not an experienced computer user. But before you set out to do so or ask a friend or a professional, the first step should be for you to remove Crypt0 Ransomware ASAP.

It is really not that complicated to clean this threat from your system. We have prepared instructions for you so that you can put an end to this invasion manually once and for all. Once you are done with it, you can deal with the restoration of your files. If you want to avoid similar attacks, you really need to be more careful around your inbox but also, about the choice of the websites you visit and the third-party ads you click on. All in all, we advise you to install a reliable anti-malware program that could take all the burden of being careful off your shoulders and detect and sort out all possible malware threats automatically. If you want to make sure that your computer is fully protected, apart from using a decent professional malware remover, you also need to keep all your programs and drivers up-to-date.

How to remove Crypt0 Ransomware from Windows

1. Press Win+E to open File Explorer.
2. Delete the downloaded file from the folder you saved it as well as the malicious executable file "crypt0-Encrypt.exe" from this location:
   %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (WinXP only)
   %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
3. Remove the "HELP_DECRYPT.TXT" ransom note from every affected folder.
4. Empty your Recycle Bin.
5. Restart your system.