Lolita Ransomware Virus - How to remove

Lolita is the name of the ransomware virus that can severely damage your system and lock almost all personal files that are stored on the hard drive. It’s believed that Lolita is a new version of infamous Scarab ransomware. It seems like lately a lot of cyber criminals decided to take a path that was set by Scarab – viruses like Crypted034, NinjaLoc, and Omerta were based on this particular infection.

Scarab was furious and powerful, so we have to hope that Lolita won’t be able to repeat the success of its predecessor. Nevertheless, Lolita is an extremely dangerous computer virus that can paralyze your system. However, all is not lost even if you get infected with it – there are some techniques that can help you solve this problem.

It’s good that you have found a way to our article because we will provide you with detailed instructions on how to completely eliminate Lolita virus and restore files that have been encrypted. Unfortunately, we can’t promise nor guarantee that your files will be unlocked. Nevertheless, it’s definitely worth trying, so keep reading.

Lolita Virus Details

Like most of the other ransomware viruses, Lolita is distributed as an attachment to spammy email letters. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not publicly declared in those letters that you are about to download a virus to your computer. No, they use social engineering techniques and craft those emails really smartly. Usually, the text says that you have some important invoice or document that is attached to the letter. However, when you open or download that “document”, it turns out that it’s not a promised document, but a malicious file that will automatically upload all malicious files to your system.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about it after that – Lolita will start scanning your hard drive, looking for files that can be encrypted. Some bad news for you – this infection is capable of encrypting most of the personal files, including but not limited to photos, text documents, audio and video files and so on.

For the encryption, Lolita employs ’military, so there is no way you can reverse it and decrypt files by your own. Also, they assign a unique key for every infected system. This way they can manage infected computers and ransom payments. Also, the key is used to decrypt files. Since the key is stored on a remote web server controlled by cyber criminals, the only possible way to get it is to pay a ransom.

How to tell if your files were encrypted? Well, you will definitely notice that all your personal files now feature an extension “.lolita”. So if you had a file “file.txt”, now it will look like “file.txt.lolita”. In addition to that, a ransom note called “How to restore files.TXT” fill be placed on your desktop.

It is a text document that contains information about the infection and instructions on how to pay the ransom. It goes like this:

Your files are now encrypted!

Your personal identifier:
–

All your files have been encrypted due to a security problem with your PC.

Now you should send us email with your personal identifier.
This email will be as confirmation you are ready to pay for decryption key.
You have to pay for decryption in Bitcoins. The price depends on how fast you write to us.
After payment we will send you the decryption tool that will decrypt all your files.

Contact us using this email address: [email protected]
If you don’t get a reply or if the email dies, then contact us using this e-mail: [email protected]

Free decryption as guarantee!
Before paying you can send us up to 3 files for free decryption.
The total size of files must be less than 5Mb (non archived), and files should not contain
valuable information (databases, backups, large excel sheets, etc.).

How to obtain Bitcoins?
* The easiest way to buy bitcoins is LocalBitcoins site. You have to register, click
‘Buy bitcoins’, and select the seller by payment method and price:
https://localbitcoins.com/buy_bitcoins
* Also you can find other places to buy Bitcoins and beginners guide here:
http://www.coindesk.com/information/how-can-i-buy-bitcoins

Attention!
* Do not rename encrypted files.
* Do not try to decrypt your data using third party software, it may cause permanent data loss.
* Decryption of your files with the help of third parties may cause increased price
(they add their fee to our) or you can become a victim of a scam.

Cyber criminals encourage you to send them up to 3 encrypted files, so they can decrypt them and prove that they have the technology to do that. Also, you are asked to contact them via email [email protected] or [email protected], so they provide you with the information on how to pay the ransom and how much is the ransom.

However, we do not recommend to do that – it’s not a good idea to pay the ransom, even though it is a small one. Instead of that, you should try an alternative, legal methods to get back what belongs to you and doesn’t involve supporting cyber criminals by paying them.

How to Kill Lolita Virus And Restore Files

First of all, you should understand that removing the virus and decrypting locked files are two different things. You need to do both and one doesn’t work without the other. Obviously, you should get rid of Lolita first. To do that, download reliable anti-malware tool, such as Spyhunter and scan your system with it. One of those programs will automatically detect and remove the virus and all files related to it from your system.

Then, you should take care of your locked files. Probably the easiest way to do that is to perform a system restore. However, to be able to do that you have to have a valid backup copy that was made before Lolita infected your computer.

In case you don’t have a backup, try to use free ’files, which can be effective in some cases.

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

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

Step 3. Restore Lolita Ransomware 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 Lolita Ransomware 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 Lolita Ransomware 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.