BORISHORSE - How to remove

Files suddenly being locked with the “.BORISHORSE” extension, a pop-up window telling you to contact people to get your data back — these are some very alarming symptoms. They show that your computer has been infected with a file-encrypting virus. This one has been named BORISHORSE and it shares family ties with Dharma and Phobos — established ransomware strains which have been attacking computers for many months now. Evidently, the criminals have been successful enough to keep this up with new variants of their malware (BORISHORSE was discovered just a day ago) being released regularly.

While having data backups can basically render BORISHORSE harmless, not everyone thinks ahead to set them up. Even when they do, the backups might be left accessible for the virus and also get encrypted. This happens to businesses and institutions which can’t afford to lose their data, such as hospitals. The cybercriminals profit from attacking those who are the most likely to be desperate, but anyone is vulnerable: businesses, small servers, as well as personal computers.

The people behind BORISHORSE promise to restore the files if they get money, but paying them is not a good idea, almost all experts advise against it. If you did pay, not only would you be rewarding the criminals for their crimes, you’d also risk losing your money (usually a few thousand dollars) and your data — some of the people distributing the Phobos malware collect the money but don’t bother to restore the files. And there is no way to refund.

What BORISHORSE looks like

BORISHORSE is similar to other Phobos ransomware, such as Frendi and Adame. It most likely gets on the system through a weakly secured RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) or through infected files distributed with spam emails. It’s also likely that BORISHORSE can be downloaded while hidden in some wanted program. It’s possible to avoid this. RDP should only accept certain IPs, the passwords and usernames should be complex, all the other protection should be set up. And mysterious files should not be opened without first scanning them with some protection software. After all, BORISHORSE locks the files remarkably quickly — there is almost no way that you could notice and stop it before it causes real harm. Modern ransomware works fast.

The files which are affected by BORISHORSE have new text strings appended to their names: .[random].[[email protected]].BORISHORSE. The email address of the criminals is included in it, as well as a random id. The files themselves are locked (or rather, most of the files are) by turning portions of their internal content into nonsense. The files can only be fixed by getting your unique decryption key and using it to reverse the cryptographic algorithm that was used to scramble the data in your files.

After the files are locked, BORISHORSE leaves a message from the extortionists in info.hta and info.txt. The note tries to make it very easy for you, the victim, to go ahead and send them money — it provides detailed instructions on how to buy Bitcoins. That could be considered a sort of social engineering — discouraging the victim from seeking advice online.

All your files have been encrypted due to a security problem with your PC. If you want to restore them, write us to the e-mail [email protected]

Cryptoviruses might be some of the worst malware right now, and they’re still active. Despite the fact that the vast majority of reputable antivirus tools detect BORISHORSE as malicious, and they detect other cryptoviruses without much problem, people still lose their precious files every day to this extortion scheme. Stress and grief experienced when losing personal files can be immeasurable.

And even if you have backups, it takes time to restore data from them. If a business is suffering from a BORISHORSE infection, that time is also expensive.

Remove BORISHORSE and restore the files

BORISHORSE might try to attack your system again in a few weeks, so make sure to secure it as much as you can:

• Remove BORISHORSE from your computers.
• Install the latest security updates.
• Secure your backups or set up redundant backups.
• Tech all the users of your computer about phishing emails, the importance of strong passwords, and about scanning all the files before opening them.

To remove the virus, run any professional antimalware program, like Spyhunter — you might need to run it in safe mode to successfully remove BORISHORSE. After that, install all the security updates that you can.

Unfortunately, there is no free decryption available for any new Phobos variants. There might be something in the future and if you wish to wait and hope for it, just keep the files (or the image of all the infected disks) and put them somewhere safe. There is not much hope that any researchers can help, but the early versions of Dharma (an older sister to Phobos) did get cracked.

Look at the guide below — there are the ways that you might be able to get back the data encrypted by BORISHORSE. These methods might or might not work on your files, depending on your situation.

If you have the option, report this attack to law enforcement (whoever is responsible for cyber crimes) in your country. If they can catch the criminals responsible for BORISHORSE, who knows — they might find the decryption tools and release them. That has happened before, however rarely.

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to recover BORISHORSE encrypted files and remove the virus

Step 1. Restore system into last known good state using system restore

1. Reboot your computer to Safe Mode with Command Prompt:

for Windows 7 / Vista/ XP

• Start → Shutdown → Restart → OK.
• Press F8 key repeatedly until Advanced Boot Options window appears.
• Choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

for Windows 8 / 10

• Press Power at Windows login screen. Then press and hold Shift key and click Restart.
• Choose Troubleshoot → Advanced Options → Startup Settings and click Restart.
• When it loads, select Enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt from the list of Startup Settings.

 

2.Restore System files and settings.

• When Command Prompt mode loads, enter cd restore and press Enter.
• Then enter rstrui.exe and press Enter again.
• Click “Next” in the windows that appeared.
• Select one of the Restore Points that are available before BORISHORSE has infiltrated to your system and then click “Next”.
• To start System restore click “Yes”.

 

Step 2. Complete removal of BORISHORSE

After restoring your system, it is recommended to scan your computer with an anti-malware program, like Spyhunter and remove all malicious files related to BORISHORSE. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore BORISHORSE affected files using Shadow Volume Copies

If you do not use System Restore option on your operating system, there is a chance to use shadow copy snapshots. They store copies of your files that point of time when the system restore snapshot was created. Usually BORISHORSE tries to delete all possible Shadow Volume Copies, so this methods may not work on all computers. However, it may fail to do so. Shadow Volume Copies are only available with Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. There are two ways to retrieve your files via Shadow Volume Copy. You can do it using native Windows Previous Versions or via Shadow Explorer. a) Native Windows Previous Versions Right-click on an encrypted file and select Properties → Previous versions tab. Now you will see all available copies of that particular file and the time when it was stored in a Shadow Volume Copy. Choose the version of the file you want to retrieve and click Copy if you want to save it to some directory of your own, or Restore if you want to replace existing, encrypted file. If you want to see the content of file first, just click Open.

b) Shadow Explorer It is a program that can be found online for free. You can download either a full or a portable version of Shadow Explorer. Open the program. On the left top corner select the drive where the file you are looking for is a stored. You will see all folders on that drive. To retrieve a whole folder, right-click on it and select “Export”. Then choose where you want it to be stored.

Step 4. Use Data Recovery programs to recover BORISHORSE encrypted files

There are several data recovery programs that might recover encrypted files as well. This does not work in all cases but you can try this:

• We suggest using another PC and connect the infected hard drive as slave. It is still possible to do this on infected PC though.
• Download a data recovery program.
• Install and scan for recently deleted files.

Note: In many cases it is impossible to restore data files affected by modern ransomware. Thus I recommend using decent cloud backup software as precaution. We recommend checking out Carbonite, BackBlaze, CrashPlan or Mozy Home.