Omerta ransomware - How to remove

Omerta ransomware might be detrimental to your system. This ransomware virus is looking to encrypt your personal files and then demand a ransom to be paid in order to provide you with the decryptor.

If you are not familiar with term ransomware yet, it’s a type of virus that employs specific cryptography to change the structure of files that are stored on the infected system and then users can’t open those files anymore. Then they are asked to pay some amount of money in exchange for specific software or key that can unlock those files.

Omerta virus fits this description perfectly, so there are no doubts that it’s a ransomware infection. It would be the best if you could avoid such applications in a first place. However, since you are here, we assume that you have some problems regarding this infection. That’s why we are going to provide you with the most important information about this infection, as well as detailed instructions on how to retrieve encrypted files and remove the virus itself.

How Omerta Encrypts Files

It’s obvious that the main goal of cybercriminals behind this infection is to infect as many computers as possible and then try to collect money from desperate users. They have a special script that will automatically start malicious processes once the payload file is successfully uploaded to the computer.

The hard drive will be scanned for files that can be encrypted. After that, the encryption process takes place and a unique extension “[random_characters].[[email protected]].omerta” is added to the end of all encrypted files, thus it really messes up the names.

After that, the virus generates “READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO GET ALL YOUR FILES BACK.TXT” file and places it to every existing folder that contains encrypted files. It’s wort to mention that Omerta won’t touch system files, thus your Windows OS should be running just fine.

The file contains instructions how to pay the ransom and receive decryptor, it goes like this:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

|                                                                                                  |

|                 *** IF YOU WANT TO GET ALL YOUR FILES BACK, PLEASE READ THIS ***                 |

|__________________________________________________________________________________________________|

Your files are now encrypted!

—–BEGIN PERSONAL IDENTIFIER—–

;AQAAAAAAACIhd,CHeTgEhNACANgEr~t,-H,}SM-Sh(idnb$sgS;+$#aeUn}u);@h($}uiL$@U;&c;Np`,O$p]pqH~je+J-f,J]N

[redacted]

K=.[bONi]!G^E%`bBaPisInI`S.Uoa#`,aLH{otaKbk}kDuRBlk;i,Tj.Mkb+)`sGl$!+AQOeK=L.jEM-bqu[{IG;!=.;(qr;-;m

[redacted]

%kQfnIc;^a)oo$JB$ndBCkCFJhcmmIh$DUa%GOD.[tdoGNsMQq;iC;FIfp`j!BO#UFqK}$(,.NcM^=}t@;Btleh[MklQAn~BOf}I

[redacted]

JlFGRJQpG.L(]nqk+OaL%)@ArA-%mDsI^Q!ioRJ(,^pAo-+Chbdn#HB%-g)#B#pBN@{@$+.E@_C}o$D=O`N=R$CCaC}p[,;GuJL{

[redacted]

UdeEU`TStIArd[f%uJSIrqlL[l.mR^;-l#iSA]NRAIF~~QE

—–END 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]

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 10Mb (non archived), and files should not contain

valuable information (databases, backups, large excel sheets, etc.).

 __________________________________________________________________________________________________

|                                                                                                  |

| 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.                              |

|                                                                                                  |

|__________________________________________________________________________________________________|

They want you to contact them at [email protected] for further details, yet we don’t recommend to do that. It’s clear that you will be asked to transfer some Bitcoins on the market, but the amount is not known. Regardless of the amount you will be asked to pay, it’s not worth to do that.

How To Solve Omerta Ransomware Problem

So if your computer is infected with this ransomware, you have two main problems – your files are locked and you no longer can use your computer, even though it boots up and the operating system is working. Cybersecurity researcher Michael Gillespie suggests that Omerta of notorious Scarab virus. That gives us some guidance on how to act in this particular situation.

Unfortunately, a free decryptor for this particular infection is not available right now. That leaves you with the only option – you can restore your files from a backup copy (if you have it). You can also try to use one of free. If none of those options work for you, the last hope is to pay the ransom to cybercriminals and hope for the best. However, if the files that have been encrypted are not very important and you can live without them, it’s not even worth paying for them.

Nonetheless, you have to remove Omerta virus itself from the computer. The best way to do that is to use anti-malware application, such as Spyhunter. All it takes is a scan with one of those programs and the infection will be automatically detected and removed from your computer.

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

Step 2. Complete removal of Omerta 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 Omerta ransomware. You can check other tools here.  

Step 3. Restore Omerta 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 Omerta 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 Omerta 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.