Coverton Ransomware - How to remove

Coverton Ransomware is a new annoying locker that uses AES+RSA encryption to lock you personal files and then asks to pay a ransom to get the decryption key. The only goal of this virus is to rip computer users off. The program doesn’t hide itself and immediately alerts about its infiltration. You will receive a warning on your computer screen saying that your personal files have been locked and in order to unlock them, you must pay a ransom in Bitcoins.

Beware that you can recover your files without paying a ransom, if you have a backup. Then you have to remove Coverton Ransomware. We strongly recommend using an anti-malware program, for example, Spyhunter or StopZilla.

About Coverton Ransomware

Coverton Ransomware was first detected at the end of March 2016. Once inside, the program is configured to be started automatically when Windows starts. The program scans your system and looks for certain extensions, so it could encrypt your files. There are several variants of Coverton Ransomware. Depending on a version, it renames your files by adding .coverton, .enigma or .czvxce extensions.

The program also creates a note in .txt and .html files which provide instructions what to do, if your system was affected by Coverton Ransomware. It basically says that all your files have been encrypted and to receive a key for decrypting it you must pay 1 BTC. Here is how the warninig looks like:

COVERTON
Warning! What happened to your computer?
All your files on hard drives, removable media and network files were encrypted by a cryptographically strong algorithm AES-256 with encryption key RSA-2048. The expansion of encrypted files is.
For the time the decryption of AES-256 is impossible.

What have you to do?
To receive a pair of keys for decrypting your files you have to go through the following steps:
Simple variant: click to {custom URL for the infected user} and follow the instructions OR complex variant:
1. Download TOR Browser: {tor download page}
2. Open link in TOR Browser: {custom URL for the infected user via TOR}
3. Follow the instructions.
We recommend you not to disconnect your computer from the electrical supply.
We recommend you not to disconnect your computer from the Internet.
We recommend you not to extract the encrypted electronic data carriers.

Danger!
Do not try to cheat the system, do not attempt to edit encrypted files, do not attempt to remove the program.
Such actions can easily bring to the inability to recover your files and data, so we can not help.
Danger!
The key to decrypt your files is stored on our remote server.”

After the payment is made, you are supposed to get a download link for the decryptor. Unfortunately, there have been some reports that you get not decryptor or it doesn’t work properly. Therefore, we do not recommend paying, as you may simply lose your money. Beware that Coverton Ransomware also deletes your shadow volume copies, so you couldn’t use them to recover your data.

Distribution Methods of Coverton Ransomware

There is still no information about how exactly Coverton Ransomware is distributed, but usually this kind of ransowmare spread with attachments in spam emails. You should be more careful with those and obviously take a better care of your computer’s protection. Having only an anti-virus installed is not enough. You should really consider getting an ant-malware program too. Only if you take the best care of your computer’s protection you will reduce the risk of being affected by a ransomware to minimum.

If your system has already been affected, make sure you remove Coverton Ransomware as soon as possible. We will mention again that the best way to get your files back is to restore them form a back up. As you see, it is crucial to get regular backups if you care about your personal data.

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

 

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

Step 3. Restore Coverton 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 Coverton 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 Coverton 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.

Manual removal