Cryptre Virus - How to remove

Cryptre virus, also known as .encrypted virus, is a dangerous ransomware that can demolish your computer. There is only one goal in the mind of cyber criminals standing behind this virus – they want to make money by forcing owners of the infected computer into paying the ransom.

You might wonder why would you have to pay a ransom? Well, Cryptre employs strong cryptography and encrypts personal files stored on the hard drive. Then, the ransom is demanded in an exchange of special tool that should reverse the encryption process and decrypt the files. However, we want to inform you that paying the ransom to developers of Cryptre is not a good idea for multiple reasons.

Obviously, your personal files are of a huge significance to you and you want to recover them as soon as possible. That means you have to remove Cryptre virus first and then use alternative tools and methods o retrieve files that originally belongs to you. In case you have no clue how to do that, we are here to help you – in this article, we will teach you how to completely remove Cryptre Virus and decrypt files that were affected, so if you are in this unfortunate situation right now, please proceed reading.

Cryptre Ransomware Specs

It’s obvious, that Cryptre is just a new, updated version of Crypto Wire ransomware. Everything from the name and distribution methods to technical features is very similar between those two. However, that doesn’t make Cryptre virus less dangerous.

Cryptre is using either AES 256 (advanced encryption standard) or RSA encryption algorithm, so files encrypted by this virus are extremely difficult to decrypt. What’s even worse – Cryptre is capable of encrypting most of the common personal files, so if this virus manages to get inside of your system, almost all of your personal files and documents will be locked and you won’t be able to use them anymore.

The same as Crypto Wire, Cryptre employs .encrypted extension to mark locked files. So if you had a file named “file.txt”, after the encryption it will look like “file.txt.encrypted”. In fact, there are even more ransomware viruses that use the same extension – CryptoLite, Gollum, Winsecure and so on.

Generally, all ransomware viruses are really similar to each other. Perhaps the biggest difference that separates Cryptre from other ransomware infections is the ransom note. Most of the ransomware malware simply drop a new file in every folder that contains encrypted files with written instructions on how to pay the ransom, purchase cryptocurrencies and so on. Some ransomware takes it to another level and lock the screen or replace the desktop picture with their own image, that also contains ransom note. In this particular case, Cryptre automatically opens .exe file, which operates as a program on your screen and can’t be closed. It features a bit of text and two buttons – “Buy Bitcoins” and “Decrypt Files”. Original ransom note of Cryptre:

Your files has been safely encrypted


[Buy Bitcoins] [Decrypt Files]


[Decryptionkey]


The only way you can recover your files is to buy a decryption key


The payment method is: Bitcoins. The price is: $200 = 0.05718488 Bitcoins


Click on the ‘Buy decryption key’ button.

So cyber criminals behind this infection want you to pay a ransom of $200 and do it in Bitcoins. There are a lot of reasons why they prefer payments to be done in cryptocurrencies, and one of them is that it’s much more difficult to track them down this way.

Even if $200 seems like a fair price for your files, we still do not recommend to pay the ransom. First of all, you can get scammed – they will ignore you after the ransom is paid, you can never trust those crooks. Secondly, you would be supporting cyber criminals and their malicious jobs this way, so that’s not a good thing to do too.

How To Remove Cryptre and Retrieve Files

We have already mentioned that in order to solve this problem completely, you have to do two things – first remove the virus itself and then recover files that have been encrypted.

To remove the virus, we suggest to scan your system with Spyhunter or Spyhunter. Either of those programs should do a good job in detecting and removing Cryptre virus. That should be done fast and automatically, so all you need to do is to download one of those applications and run a full scan of your system.

When the infection is removed, you need to take care of your personal files. There are a couple of options. First, try using this Free decryption tool from Trend Micro – there are instructions on how to run it and decrypt affected files. If this fails to work for you, you can perform a system restore. However, this will be available only if you have a valid backup copy of your hard drive. Also, take a look at the instructions provided below the article, this might be helpful.

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

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

Step 3. Restore Cryptre 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 Cryptre 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 Cryptre 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.