Coos Ransomware - How to remove

Coos ransomware is a PC infection that causes your files to be broken (as well as renamed to have the “coos” file extension). Coos ransomware does this to force its victims to send money to its makers, who promise to fix the broken files once they receive their payment. In addition, Coos ransomware is installed together with adware, spyware, and other infections. Overall, these infections cause a lot of harm.

Coos can be deleted, but this doesn’t fix the harm done by the ransomware. Luckily, there are a few ways that ransomware victims can recover their data.

About Coos ransomware:

Classification	Ransomware, spyware.
How Coos infects PCs	It spreads in pirated software, it changes the names of files and encrypts them, it installs other malicious programs.
How to remove Coos	Find and delete all malicious files with antivirus tools (Spyhunter, others), change your passwords, be careful of phishing scams.
How to get back your data	Restore it from backups, look into free decryption solutions, use data recovery, repair the files manually.

How Coos ransomware works

Coos ransomware is part of the Djvu ransomware family. This family is pretty widespread and includes recent versions like Qlkm, Omfl, and hundreds of others that were released over a few years.

Here are a few things that are common for Djvu ransomware infections:

• they spread with pirated software and with cracks,
• they get installed together with spyware, adware, and other malicious programs.

Antivirus programs should detect Coos ransomware and the other malware, but some users disable their antivirus to stop it from interfering with the installation of pirated software, which makes it easier for malware to make it on the computer.

After a Coos attack, you might notice these effects:

• files have their names changed – a new file extension “.coos” is appended to their names (for example, “picture.jpg.coos”),
• files are also encrypted, unopenable,
• advertising malware injects pop-up ads into pages displayed by your browser,
• spyware steals your login credentials and you might receive messages of users trying to log in to your accounts.

Coos also leaves behind ransom notes called “_readme.txt” in which there’s a demand for money. That’s what Coos is, after all – ransomware. It’s a malicious program that encrypts your data and then asks for money to fix them.

How to remove Coos ransomware

All malicious programs and other files, including Coos ransomware, spyware, the infected installer that brought all the malware to your computer, and any other suspicious items need to be deleted. You can use an antivirus program, such as Spyhunter, but it might also be needed to use safe mode to remove malware effectively. The instructions can be found below.

As the malware might have deleted important files, including antivirus updates, it might be necessary to update or reinstall your security software before removing all malware. And for that, you need to fix the hosts file that Coos ransomware likely broke. The instructions for this can also be found below.

After cleaning your device, it’s also advisable to change your passwords. This is so that, if spyware stole your login information, that info can’t be used. If you use 2-factor authentication, then you’ll know if anyone tries to log in to your accounts, but it’s still important to be careful.

Going forward, be careful of scam emails. Don’t trust any emails that claim to know your password, any extortion emails, or phishing emails that ask you to download files or log in to websites via unfamiliar site addresses.

Can you bring your files back?

After Coos ransomware has broken all the files, getting them back is a big concern for a lot of victims. Deleting the Coos infection doesn’t undo the harm it’s done – the point of encryption is that it’s very hard to break.

The best defense against ransomware infections is making regular data backups. You can use an external drive, upload files to the cloud, or use another solution. Even if you didn’t intentionally back up your files before the Coos ransomware attack, you might have uploaded your photos online and sent out documents as email attachments, which can help you recover at least a bit of your data.

Coos’s encryption can’t be broken, but there are circumstances where the decryption key for your files might be shared with another victim. Check out the decryptor by Emsisoft.

Another option is to use data recovery programs – programs that restore deleted files by scanning your storage device. This is a bit complicated and you might want to ask the help of a professional.

And finally, you can try to repair the files that Coos encrypted. The larger the file, the more of it remains unencrypted (Coos only encodes enough of a file to break it, but it leaves some data untouched). Make backup copies of the data that Coos encrypted, then look into the ways in which images, audio files, archives, and other files might be repaired. Keep in mind that some data is irreversibly lost.

Important -- edit the hosts file to unblock security websites

TL DR : The hosts file is edited to block security sites Before the virus can be removed, it's necessary to fix the hosts file (the file which controls which addresses connect to which IPs). That is the reason the majority of security websites is inaccessible when infected with this particular parasite. This infection edits this file to stop certain websites, including anti-malware download sites, from being accessed from the infected computer, making browsers return the "This site can't be reached" error. Luckily, it's trivial to fix the file and remove the edits that were made to it.

Find and edit the hosts file

The hosts file can be found on C:/Windows/System32/Drivers/etc/hosts. If you don't see it, change the settings to see hidden files.

1. In the Start Menu, search for Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel, find Appearance and Personalization.
3. Select Folder Options.
4. Open the View tab.
5. Open Advanced settings.
6. Select "Show hidden files...".
7. Select OK.

Open this file with administrator privileges.

1. Open the Start Menu and enter "notepad".
2. When Notepad shows up in the result, right-click on it.
3. In the menu, choose "Run as administrator"
4. File->Open and browse for the hosts file.

The hosts file should look like this: Delete additional lines that they connect various domain names to the wrong IP address. Save the file.

Download and run the antivirus program

After that, download antivirus programs and use them to remove the ransomware, the trojan, and other malware. Spyhunter (https://www.2-viruses.com/reviews/spyhunter/dwnld/).

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

Step 2. Complete removal of Coos 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 Coos Ransomware. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Coos 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 Coos 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 Coos 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.