Outsider Virus - How to remove

Outsider Virus, also known as .protected extension ransomware, is a dangerous computer virus that can attack your system and completely paralyze it. This is what ransomware infections do – they completely take over your system, encrypt personal files stored on the hard drive and then ask for a ransom to be paid in order to decrypt them. Actually, you will be asked to pay for a tool, called ’decryptor’, which has the capability to reverse the encryption process and make your files usable once again.

Even if you are in a bad situation and you must retrieve the access to your personal files, don’t rush to pay the ransom – there are other, better alternatives to do that. Obviously, cybercriminals behind Outsider virus will try to convince you that there is no easy way out and paying the ransom is your only choice, but that’s not true. You can remove the virus itself using professional anti-malware software and then restore encrypted files or even perform a system restore and turn your computer back in time.

It might sound complicated, especially if you don’t have any previous experience with ransomware or don’t have a lot of experience working with computer systems in general, but we are here to help you. Please continue reading the article and learn how to eliminate Outsider virus by yourself and also restore files that were damaged.

Outsider Ransomware Features

As you might have figured out by now, Outsider uses a special encryption to lock personal files – they manipulate with them later. So once inside of your computer, Outsider will start automatically and will scan your system for various files that can be encrypted. Unfortunately, it is capable of encrypting most of the commonly used files – photos, videos, audio, text files and so on.

Encryption process will go unnoticed – they do it in the background, so you can only notice the outcome. During the process they change the structure of your files, so all those 0s and 1s will be mixed up. As a result, you won’t be able to open or use those encrypted files any longer. In addition to that, .protected extension will be added to the end of every encrypted file – that’s why Outsider virus sometimes is called .protected virus. If you had a file named “myfile.txt”, after the encryption it will look like “myfile.txt.protected”.

Also, cyber criminals behind the Outsider will let you know about the situation – “HOW_TO_RESTORE_FILES.txt” will be placed on your desktop. It is a ransom note, inside of it you will find information about your situation and instructions on how to pay the ransom. Original text of the message:

! SYSTEM SECURITY ALERT !
—————————————————————————–
Your SERVER was tried to be attacked by an outsider.
Immediatly change your password, use a minimum of 8 characters in length.
—————————————————————————–

All your personal files was encrypted with RSA public key (1024 bit) to SAVE them from a third party persons.
Now they are ENCRYPTED and SAFE!

To RESTORE all your files back immediatly, follow this few simple steps:

1) Our SECURE-SERVER service charge a payment for file decryption and preventing damage of your SERVER by 3th party persons;
2) After your SUCCESSFUL payment, write us an E-MAIL with your unique SERVER-ID and Payment ID;
3) Receive an DECRYPTION TOOL from us back to your E-MAIL;
4) Run the tool on your SERVER and safe-decrypt all your files back to NORMAL state.

We STRONGLY RECOMMEND you NOT to use any other decryption tool, files will be LOST! Only our DECRYPTION TOOL can turn back your files.

We guarantee:

100% Successful restoring all of your files
100% Satisfaction guarantee
100% Safe and secure service

As a proof, you can send us 1 file and we will DECRYPT it for free and send it back to you.
——————————————————————————

Our E-MAIL: [email protected]
Payment type: Bitcoin
Summ: $900
Our wallet: 1CfMU2eKnajfpnYvLbWR3m7jZRXujtx8Cm
Your SERVER-ID:
[Redacted] ——————————————————————————
For any questions, write us: [email protected]
MEMEWARE SECURE-SERVER SYSTEMS (c) 2018

As you can see, those crooks are using ’social – they are pretending to be good guys who are trying to protect your files from possible leakage, because your system was infected and they managed to encrypt those files before they were leaked. It’s not that hard to guess that this “service” is paid and it will cost you $900.

You should be able to understand that there was no break in into your system in the first place – it’s just a cheap trick to force you to pay the money. Even if $900 is not that much for you, we do not recommend to do that – paying for cyber criminals is never a good idea. First, you might get scammed and second, you would be supporting cyber criminals, so they could develop even more malware in the future.

How To Get Rid Of Outsider Virus

Usually, ransomware infections like Dablio, FilesLocker, or Ghost manage to infect systems when users download attachments to emails from spam category, so it’s more than likely that Outsider ransomware came to your system this way. Using professional anti-malware software can protect you from this. Also, it can remove the virus if it is already on your computer.

To remove Outsider ransomware fast and effortless, we suggest to use Spyhunter. Either one of those tools should be able to detect and remove Outsider just in minutes. Unfortunatelly, this won’t unlock your files. However, it has to be done because if you decrypt your files without removing the virus itself first, it can automatically reactivate and lock your files once again.

We suggest performing a system restore to get your files back. Unfortunately, this is only possible if you have a valid backup copy of your hard drive that was made before the infection. If you don’t have the copy or if it was removed by Outsider virus, you can try using free ’file, which might be helpful.

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

Step 2. Complete removal of Outsider 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 Outsider Virus. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Outsider 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 Outsider Virus 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 Outsider 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.

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.