LooCipher Virus - How to remove

LooCipher is a file-locking virus. Not only does it change your desktop to a message starting with “All your important files are encrypted!” and rename your files with an “lcphr” extension, it also encrypts the files to make them inaccessible and nonfunctional. LooCipher is a dangerous and harmful virus that should be taken seriously.

Although there are ways to protect yourself against a ransomware attack, restoring the LooCipher-encrypted files is a bit more complicated. The criminals offer to fix your files if they receive a ransom of a few hundred dollars, but there’s no way of knowing that they’re actually able or willing to do it. Let’s look at the other ways of restoring the files, as well as how LooCipher infects a computer in the first place and how to avoid it.

What are the symptoms?

First of all, how do you know that your computer has really been infected with LooCipher and not some other cryptovirus?

First, LooCipher changes the encrypted files into .lcphr files:

picture.jpg.lchpr

This can happen very quickly, before you can notice LooCipher in action and shut off your computer.

Another thing that changes is your desktop background: it’s now a ransom note which tells you that you need to open the LooCipher.exe file too restore your files. All that LooCipher.exe actually has are instructions on how to pay money to the developers of this virus.

All your important files (photos, documents, databases, etc.) including those on the network disks, USB, etc. were encrypted using a strong algorithm with a private and unique key generated for this computer. This key is stored in our TOR server and the only way to receive your key and decrypt your files is making a Bitcoin payment.

A text file called @Please_Read_Me.txt is also created and it talks about how a public-key encryption algorithm was used and how irrecoverable the files are if you don’t pay and about how these criminals should be trusted. They’re correct that the only way to get the decryption key is from the developers of LooCipher, and that the key is unique, so it can only help one victim. But they certainly should not be trusted — they’re criminals.

LooCipher demands money to be sent in Bitcoin because of its anonymity and automatization features, and they talk about their server being a TOR server, which also offers anonymity. Both of these technologies are legitimate and valuable to a lot of people, but they’re also abused by criminals, which might give them a bad name.

How does it infect your computer?

If you recently got an unexpected e-mail, or maybe you recently downloaded a file from a strange website? LooCipher can hide in document files, like .doc and .ppt. The problem is the malicious macros that criminals can inject into these documents.

The same way that 292news.biz can flood your browser with unwanted pop-up ads by you clicking just one button to allow notifications, LooCipher can corrupt your files by you just clicking a button to enable macros.

Malicious ads, malicious files shared on peer-to-peer networks, and programs hidden by unethical distributors in the installers of free software can all result in a cryptovirus. For example, some viruses are attached to emails, other ransomware is hidden in disguised malicious applications. A preinstalled virus can also cause more malicious pages to be opened in your browser, increasing the risk of you getting a virus. Basically, it’s important to be very careful online and with new files.

How to remove LooCipher

A strong antivirus program, like Spyhunter, should be able to do it. Not all antivirus tools can recognize LooCipher as well as the other one, but they’re constantly being updated, so the detection should improve in the future.

As for restoring your files, there are a few things to try, none of which are guaranteed to work. If you don’t have your files saved elsewhere, on some external storage that was spared LooCipher, then you can try doing a system restore. There are instructions below this article on how to do that. You might want to backup your LooCipher-encrypted files if you can’t restore them. Sometimes various antivirus companies develop free decryptors which can partially or totally restore your files, so check nomoreransom.org in the future. This might be possible because sometimes extortionists are incompetent: they only rename some files, or they cut corners by trying to make the encryption as fast as possible and only encrypt parts of a file.

Free Decryption

In July of 2019, Emsisoft developed and released a free decryptor for .lcphr files, it can be found here — Https://www.emsisoft.com/decrypter/loocipher.

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

 

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

Step 3. Restore LooCipher 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 LooCipher 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 LooCipher 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.