Storm Ransomware

The list of active ransomware infections specialists know about is already long, but they do not stop discovering new infections. Storm Ransomware is their newest finding. At first glance, it might seem that it cannot cause much harm to users because it does not encrypt files. The reason behind this might be the fact that it is still in development or it might not work very properly. In any event, you must delete this infection from your computer as soon as possible because it might be fixed or updated and encrypt files stored on the system without mercy one day. It should target images, documents, videos, music, and a bunch of other files with .asf, .pdb, .raw, .sql, .sr2, .wpd, .dxf, .cdr, .cer, .class, and other extensions. We will talk about the Storm Ransomware removal in detail right after we present this malicious application to you.

Storm Ransomware differs from other ransomware infections in a sense that it does not encrypt files. Despite the fact that it does not encrypt data at the time of writing, it does not mean that it cannot start doing that in the future. Therefore, you are definitely not allowed to keep this infection inside your system. Although Storm Ransomware does not act like a typical ransomware infection, i.e. it does not perform the encryption of files, it should still drop a ransom note on a compromised machine. It should contain the following text:

Hello You Are Hacked Now !! All your personal files have been encrypted ! if you want restore your data you have to pay ! Remember you can't restore your data without our decryptor !!!!

As can be seen, this threat also wants money from users. Since it provides the BTC address ertyuioppoiuhygtfrdeRFTGYHDEZEFFZEF (might use a different one) to users, we suspect that it wants money in Bitcoin. Most probably, you do not need a decryptor because your files are fine, but you should not give a cent to cyber criminals if you discover your files encrypted as well because you might not get anything from cyber criminals. It does not mean that it is impossible to restore files without purchasing the decryptor from malicious software developers. There is one way to restore them for free – the encrypted data can be restored from a backup. Of course, it will only be possible to do that if you made a backup of your files at least once in the past.

Storm Ransomware has one feature that distinguishes it from some other ransomware infections. It has been found that it kills two processes taskmgr.exe and ProcessHacker.exe following the successful entrance. There is no doubt that the main reason it does that is to stay longer on a victim’s machine. Despite the fact that these two processes are killed when it enters the system, it should not be harder to erase it – find more information about the removal of Storm Ransomware provided in the last paragraph.

Before we tell you how to delete Storm Ransomware from your system, we want to make it clear how this infection has entered your computer so that it would be easier for you to prevent similar infections from entering the system in the future. According to specialists at pcthreat.com, this infection is inside your system because you opened an attachment from a spam email. You could have also downloaded it from a dubious page. Delete this threat no matter how it has shown up on your system because it can bring only serious problems.

Remove Storm Ransomware no matter it has left your files intact or they have been encrypted. Most probably, it will no longer be active on your system if you simply go to erase all recently downloaded files from your computer. Consult our removal guide (you can find it below this article) first if you are not sure how to do that. Of course, the manual removal method is not the only one you can adopt. The Storm Ransomware removal can be performed using an automated malware remover as well. To be frank, it is the easiest malware removal method, but you will need to acquire a reputable malware remover first. If we were you, we would choose the automatic removal method over the manual one because one scan with a trustworthy automatic scanner will make ALL infections gone from the system.

How to delete Storm Ransomware

1. Press Win+E.
2. Type %USERPROFILE%\Downloads in the URL bar and press Enter.
3. Delete suspicious files you can find there.
4. Remove suspicious files from %USERPROFILE%\Desktop as well.
5. Empty Recycle bin.
6. Reboot your computer.