Litar Virus - How to remove

Litar ransomware, which has just been spotted recently, is a new version of STOP/DJVU — a big family of malware. This virus is created to force the victims to pay money for the opportunity to get their files back.

Litar’s developers are cybercriminals who profit from cyber extortion. Their viruses get into a system and lock the files. The locked files are unusable, and the computer is infected with malware. This means that the situation will take a bit of time to be fixed — there is no way around that. The virus, Litar, needs to be removed in order for the computer to be safe to use. And the options for recovering the encrypted files need to be reviewed.

After Litar has corrupted the files, it tells the victim to contact the extortionists using [email protected], [email protected], or @datastore (on Telegram) and send them $490. They provide this information in _readme.txt,  a file with a note from the developers of Litar.

Litar is very similar to Nusar, Lotep, Djvu, and other ransomware of the STOP/DJVU family. While Litar gives the locked files the “.litar” extension, the other viruses give different ones, but the ransom note is almost always the same.

Can the files be restored?

The ransom note is correct that most popular file types are encrypted by Litar: photos, databases, documents, other files. Locked by Litar using an encryption algorithm and hiding the decryption key, so simply renaming the files won’t help. The criminals say that they will send you functioning decryption keys; these keys are unique to each victim and, for now, cannot be cracked, guessed, or computed: they are too complex. The only practical way of getting them is from the developers of Litar.

However, it’s a bad idea to contact the criminals. Cyber extortionists don’t have a very good history of restoring files, even after they have received the ransom. According to this report, only 39% of those who have paid it succeed in getting their files back. Corrupting files is simple, but making them decryptable is more complicated, and not every ransomware developer can do that. Particularly, there are often problems with recovering big files.

To avoid paying hundreds of dollars to Litar’s developers, let’s explore alternative ways of getting back the files, assuming that you don’t have a backup with all of your important stuff. If you do have a backup, you only need to restore your system from it, though only do that after you’ve removed Litar.

If you accidentally deleted some files, shadow copies should work. And even though Litar gets rid of your backup files stored on the infected computer, you can still try using shadow copies — sometimes ransomware malfunctions. But it’s more likely that you can’t use shadow copies. Another option is data recovery. Hard disks don’t immediately remove deleted files, so it’s possible that you can recover something valuable to get around Litar. The more you use your computer before trying data recovery, the less it will work, though,

Litar is also related closely to viruses which have a type of decryptor available. This decryptor, called STOPDecrypted, is being developed for variants of STOP/DJVU, which Litar is, and it only works on files encrypted offline. Try the decryptor, but don’t hope for too much. If your Litar-locked files are very important to you, save them on a backup before trying to decrypt them.

litar ransomware, encrypted files

How to remove Litar

Before you can use your computer normally, it’s very important to get rid of Litar and any other malware that has infected your device. Not only will Litar, if not removed, continue to encrypt your new files, but there is also a chance that it came with spyware, so make sure to scan your device and remove any malware before doing anything important on this computer.

Although most reputable antivirus tools recognize Litar as malicious, it might be difficult to remove it. Litar strips your installed antivirus of its features, making it useless. You might need another antivirus application, like Spyhunter for now, but to download it, you probably need to check your hosts file. Litar also does its best to stop new antivirus programs from working, you might need to scan your disk using another computer.

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How to recover Litar Virus 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 RestartOK.
  • Press F8 key repeatedly until Advanced Boot Options window appears.
  • Choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Windows 7 enter safe mode

for Windows 8 / 10
  • Press Power at Windows login screen. Then press and hold Shift key and click Restart. Windows 8-10 restart to safe mode
  • Choose TroubleshootAdvanced OptionsStartup Settings and click Restart.
  • When it loads, select Enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt from the list of Startup Settings. Windows 8-10 enter safe mode
 

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.CMD commands
  • Click “Next” in the windows that appeared. Restore point img1
  • Select one of the Restore Points that are available before Litar has infiltrated to your system and then click “Next”. Restore point img2
  • To start System restore click “Yes”. Restore point img3
 

Step 2. Complete removal of Litar Virus

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 Litar. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Litar Virus 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 Litar 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 PropertiesPrevious 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.
Previous version
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.
Shadow explorer

Step 4. Use Data Recovery programs to recover Litar Virus 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. Data Recovery Pro
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.
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