The Brotherhood Ransomware - How to remove

The Brotherhood is the name of computer virus which is categorized as ransomware. Ransomware infections are extremely dangerous – they can completely ruin your system and make it unusable. Most importantly, it can destroy your personal files, so you are in danger of losing very important data.

This particular virus is targeting computer with Windows operating system. It might modify various personal settings and try to encrypt files stored on the hard drive. Actually, that’s the main goal of this virus – to hold personal files as a hostage and request for a ransom to be paid in order to retrieve them. Allegedly, you should be provided with working decryption tool after paying the ransom. However, we can’t confirm or deny that fact.

In this article, we will review all malicious features of this nasty virus – how it is distributed, what technology is used to encrypt files on the infected system, and what consequences it can have on your system. Most importantly, we will provide you with removal instructions for The Brotherhood virus and some tips on how you can restore your encrypted files without paying the ransom.

How The Brotherhood Virus Operates

The Brotherhood infection is classified as a ransomware due to some obvious reasons:

• Infects computer via malicious emails;
• Encrypts personal files;
• Might infiltrate other malware into the computer;
• Will force you to pay the ransom.

That perfectly defines a typical ransomware and we have seen a lot of them – UnlockMePlease, LanRan, Predator, Arescrypt and so on. They all have only one goal and it is to steal money from unfortunate users.

That being said, you already know what to expect if this virus secretly invects your computer. First of all, it will start scanning your files with an ambition to identify files that can be encrypted. It’s sad, but The Brotherhood can encrypt most of the files – your photos, text documents, audio and video files, and so on.

After the scan, it will automatically start the encryption process. Very strong AES encryption algorithm will be employed to lock those files. The same as most of the other ransomware infections, The Brotherhood Ransomware also uses a unique extension which is added to the end of every encrypted file – “.ransomcrypt”.

That’s it, after this moment all of your personal files will be encrypted and you won’t be able to open any of them. Please note, that The Brotherhood virus isn’t affecting systemic files, so your computer should be still running fine.

Ransom of The Brotherhood

A file named RansomNote.jpg will be created automatically and placed on the desktop of the infected computer. It says:

Your files have been encrypted. To decrypt your file, please transfer 100 BTC
to Bitcoin Address
24fAcfdYasU975qwFGyesl45eH63cNuCZP
Otherwise, you will lose your file today at 16:30:00hrs
HACKED THE BROTHERHOOD

As you can see, they are trying to scare users by limiting their time and forcing to pay the ransom, otherwise, all encrypted files will be removed and gone for good. However, even if some users would be willing to pay the ransom because they don’t want to lose their files, the price is absolutely ridiculous – it’s 100 Bitcoins. At the time, one Bitcoin is around $8000, so it converts into 800000 USD.

Obviously, you are not going to pay that much. It is even suggesting that The Brotherhood virus might be just a wicked joke and they don’t actually want to make money. However, locked files and paralyzed system is not that much of a joke.

How To Remove The Brotherhood Virus and Restore Your Files

First of all, you have to eliminate this infection from your computer. To do that, you will have to scan your computer with Spyhunter. Either one of those programs should be able to easily detect and remove The Brotherhood ransomware. However, that doesn’t mean that your files will be unlocked – it will only remove the virus itself.

Unfortunately, a free decryptor for .ransomcrypt encryption is not available at the moment. That means you can only restore files from a backup. This process is not very complicated, however, in order to be able to do that, you have to have a valid backup file that was created before the date when this virus infected your computer. If you do have this file, follow system restore instructions. Also, take a look at the step-by-step ransomware removal guide below this article.

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to remove The Brotherhood Ransomware using Windows Control Panel

Many hijackers and adware like Brotherhood Ransomware install some of their components as regular Windows programs as well as additional software. This part of malware can be uninstalled from the Control Panel. To access it, do the following.

• Start→Control Panel (older Windows) or press Windows Key→Search and enter Control Panel and then press Enter (Windows 8, Windows 10).
• Choose Uninstall Program (if you don't see it, click in the upper right next to "View by" and select Category).
• Go through the list of programs and select entries related to The Brotherhood Ransomware . You can click on "Name" or "Installed On" to reorder your programs and make Brotherhood Ransomware easier to find.
• Click the Uninstall button. If you're asked if you really want to remove the program, click Yes.
• In many cases anti-malware programs are better at detecting related parasites, thus I recommend installing Spyhunter to identify other programs that might be a part of this infection.