Myskle Ransomware - How to remove

Myskle is the new computer virus which targets people who download free software. It locks files and demands money for restoring them. This virus should be removed immediately, but restoring the files is a more complicated problem.

Myskle infects computers by being downloaded and run by the victims who thought that the program was some other product. Antivirus programs don’t always recognize new viruses, so Myskle could trick people to believe that it’s a safe file even if they diligently scan it. Once run, Myskle should display a fake Windows update window to justify all the system resources that it’s using to encrypt files and to stop people from interrupting its work. In reality, if you detect a file-encrypting virus running on your system, you should interrupt it to stop your files being corrupted.

Myskle can be recognized by .myskle being appended to the names of almost all of your files, like a file type. The virus also creates a ransom note called _readme.txt:

ATTENTION!

Don’t worry my friend, you can return all your files!
All your files like photos, databases, documents and other important are encrypted with strongest encryption and unique key.
The only method of recovering files is to purchase decrypt tool and unique key for you.
This software will decrypt all your encrypted files.
What guarantees you have?
You can send one of your encrypted file from your PC and we decrypt it for free.
But we can decrypt only 1 file for free. File must not contain valuable information.
You can get and look video overview decrypt tool:
https://we.tl/t-oEUEuysYiZ
Price of private key and decrypt software is $980.
Discount 50% available if you contact us first 72 hours, that’s price for you is $490.
Please note that you’ll never restore your data without payment.
Check your e-mail “Spam” or “Junk” folder if you don’t get answer more than 6 hours.

To get this software you need write on our e-mail:
[email protected]

Reserve e-mail address to contact us:
[email protected]

Support Telegram account:
@datarestore

Your personal ID:
…

The people who wrote that are the criminals responsible for the virus. Not just Myskle, but also Norvas, Redmat, and the other DJVU variants. The email addresses — [email protected], [email protected], and @datarestore (Telegram) — even remain the same through some of the versions. The members of the DJVU family keep changing to make recognizing them more difficult for antivirus programs.

Can the files be fixed?

Myskle locks almost all of your files: pictures, documents, films, spreadsheets, audio files — anything that the criminals think might be valuable. To be more precise, Myskle encrypts the files. If you look at those files, they look corrupted, scrambled. That’s how encryption works — by making the contents of a message incomprehensible.

This process is reversible, but only if you have the decryption key (that’s a number unique to each victim). The criminals behind Myskle claim to have the keys on their server and are trying to get people to pay money for the promise of decryption. But many extortionists in the past have, after receiving the payment, demanded more, or just ignored the victim, so that’s not a reliable way to try and restore your files, even if you were able to sacrifice hundreds of dollars.

There might not be a way to decrypt the files, but there are ways to restore the deleted ones: system restore, data recovery, and backups.

With Myskle, it’s not clear that a system restore is going to be possible — the virus likely deleted any backup files that Windows created. But it might still be possible to restore deleted files using data recovery. There is a guide below this article that outlines a few ways to retrieve lost data.

Backups are data saved redundantly to protect it in exactly the kind of situation that Myskle creates. If files are lost, the storage device is broken, or a virus wipes out the files, a backup can be used to retrieve the data. But for backups to be useful, they have to be stored separately from the computer, remain updated as the files change, and they have to have been made before the Myskle infection. With healthy backups, a ransomware virus isn’t too scary.

How to remove Myskle

Getting rid of the virus can be complicated because Myskle can be persistent. Scan your computer with Spyhunter, or another strong antivirus program. If you can’t access some websites, check your settings for malicious modifications by Myskle. If the virus is interfering with your antivirus programs, scan it after connecting it as external storage to another computer.

How to recover Myskle Ransomware 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 Myskle Ransomware has infiltrated to your system and then click “Next”.
• To start System restore click “Yes”.

 

Step 2. Complete removal of Myskle Ransomware

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 Myskle Ransomware. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Myskle Ransomware 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 Myskle Ransomware 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 Myskle Ransomware 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.