Lapoi File-Locker - How to remove

It can be easy to think of computer viruses as some intangible thing that messes with the functioning of a computer but has no real-world consequences. However, ransomware is a type of virus that affects the real world substantially — by costing people, businesses, and organizations time, money, and data.

Lapoi is an example of ransomware that’s created to target individual users. It’s part of an extortion scheme that the cybercriminals have been conducting for years. Lapoi is part of STOP ransomware, a family of closely related threats, among which are Godes, Drume, and Djvu.

A Lapoi infection can be recognized by the extension that the locked files have: .lapoi. The virus also should create a note called _readme that starts like this:

ATTENTION!

Don’t worry, you can return all your files!
All your files like photos, databases, documents and other important are encrypted with strongest encryption and unique key.

Unfortunately, the extortionists are right that Lapoi locks the files with genuinely strong and secure encryption. While it’s reversible and the files could be decrypted in theory, there is no practical way to break it and find out the decryption key needed for this. The criminals claim to have the decryption keys of each victim but they demand money for this. And the number of people who’ve lost money and didn’t receive the decryption keys shows that the people behind Lapoi are certainly not trustworthy.

How to deal with a Lapoi infection

In general, the various ransomware viruses travel in many ways:

• Remote Desktop — hacked accounts.
• Malspam — infected files arriving with emails.
• Malvertising — drive-by downloads of infected files.

Some ransomware infects unsecured computers, other tricks the victims to download the virus themselves. Lapoi mostly spreads by pretending to be useful software and being made available online. Mostly, the type of programs that are used by Lapoi as disguise include software activators, cracked commercial programs, and other shady software. There is a reason why pirated files have a bad reputation: it’s not unusual for miners, trojans, and other malware to be hidden in them.

If you found yourself infected with the Lapoi file-locker:

• Don’t pay unless you’re willing to lose your money for nothing in return. If someone offers to decrypt your files, don’t trust them. Many people are waiting to take advantage of the victims despite not having the ability to decrypt files. Only honest, reputable people can be trusted.
• Be careful with your financial and other accounts. Lapoi might install a password-stealing trojan, so don’t do anything sensitive so that your accounts don’t get hacked later. After you remove the trojan, go ahead and change your passwords and turn on two-factor authentication.
• Lapoi might have changed your settings to stop your computer from visiting certain websites. If it did, you’ll have to edit your hosts file.
• If you didn’t have backups, remember to set them up. Whether it’s the cloud, an external drive, or something else, ransomware will not be scary when you can simply restore your locked files.

How to restore Lapoi files

First, make sure that Lapoi can’t re-encrypt any of your files: remove or quarantine the virus, use a professional and reputable tool, such as Spyhunter. Be sure to not dismiss any warnings. It’s likely that multiple threats are lurking on your computer and they should all be removed.

As the files locked by Lapoi are encrypted, the only way to reverse that is by using the decryption key. This is a problem because only Lapoi’s developers know the decryption keys. Luckily, there are some circumstances in which Lapoi fails to get the encryption key from the developers and uses a hardcoded encryption key for locking the files. A researcher and volunteer Demonslay335 has developed and constantly updates a tool called STOPDecrypter which can decrypt some files if they were locked with the hardcoded key — or will be able to, if it’s updated to support Lapoi. Follow the news.

Whichever Lapoi files STOPDecrypter doesn’t work on can’t currently be decrypted except if the criminals were to be caught and their data — leaked. This is unlikely to happen, though storing those still-encrypted files is not a bad idea. The files aren’t harmful. Meanwhile, a few other file-recovery options are available to you. They’re listed in the guide below this article.

Automatic Malware removal tools

How to recover Lapoi File-Locker 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 Lapoi File-Locker has infiltrated to your system and then click “Next”.
• To start System restore click “Yes”.

 

Step 2. Complete removal of Lapoi File-Locker

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 Lapoi File-Locker. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Lapoi File-Locker 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 Lapoi File-Locker 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 Lapoi File-Locker 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.