Skull Ransomware

Computer malware enters target systems in various ways, but when you get infected with Skull Ransomware, you will definitely notice that your system has been taken over by a malicious infection. A ransomware infection is a type of computer threat that will hold your system hostage until you pay the ransom fee. The ransom fee is designated in the ransom note this program displays. Computer security experts urge users to remove Skull Ransomware from the infected systems immediately and forget about paying the ransom fee. You should never give in to these demands because that way you would only let these criminals win.

This infection is not very prominent, so it is not clear where it comes from. That is to say; we cannot point out one distribution source. If users want to protect themselves from the likes of such programs, they need to keep in mind all the potential ransomware distribution methods that could be applied by Skull Ransomware. And the thing you should pay attention to is spam email messages. Spam email is the most common method for ransomware distribution. But users seldom realize that they face the risk of a potential infection because there is always this “it will not happen to me” factor.

Not to mention, spam email usually gets filtered into the Junk folder nowadays, and you do not really need to deal with such emails first-hand. Or at least that is what users think. The problem is that those spam email campaigns that distribute Skull Ransomware and other similar infections are a lot more sophisticated than those spam messages that we are used to. They can easily get into your main inbox because they often look like legitimate notifications from online stores or some financial institutions. For instance, it might look like an invoice for some purchase you have made recently.

This is how Skull Ransomware and other similar infection trick users into downloading the installer files. Users think they download a file attachment that has some important information, but in reality, they only launch the infection and infect their computer with it. As a result, the moment you launch the file, Skull Ransomware enters your system and scans your computer looking for the files it can encrypt. It usually targets user files that are saved in the %UserProfile% directory. When the encryption is complete, all the affected files will have a new extension added to them. On the other hand, you do not really need this extension to realize that you can no longer open your files.

What usually happens when users realize they cannot open their files? People tend to panic. Especially if the files are very important and they need them at once. What’s more, Skull Ransomware will try to push that panic mode even further by displaying this notification:

All your files have been encrypted!

If you read this file, that’s mean all your files was encrypted by the Skull Ransomware.

1 – To get your files back please send ($400) Bitcoins to the one of the following Bitcoin wallet:
<…>

2 – Send us the payment:
* Transaction number
* The wallet address from where you made the payment
* Your full computer hostname to the email below

As you can see, the criminals try to collect as many payments as possible, and they make it sound as if paying the ransom is the only way to retrieve your files. Albeit, there is no public decryption tool available at the moment, you should never pay a single cent because by paying you would only encourage these cyber criminals to continue doing what they are up to.

Instead of paying the ransom, you should remove Skull Ransomware from your system at once. You can find the manual removal instructions below, but do not forget to run a full PC scan with a powerful antispyware tool because you need to locate all the malicious files and remove them, too.

As far as your files are concerned, it would be for the best to restore them from an external backup. Perhaps you have a hard drive where you store most of your files. Or maybe you have saved a lot of documents on your mobile device. There are always ways to retrieve at least the bigger part of your data, so do not give up!

How to Remove Skull Ransomware

1. Open the Downloads folder.
2. Remove the most recently downloaded files.
3. Scan your PC with SpyHunter.