Whoopsie Ransomware - How to remove

Whoopsie Ransomware – extremely dangerous cryptovirus. It falls into the category of ransomware infections due to obvious reasons. Whoopsie has all attributes that are common to ransomware infections, because it is distributed using deceptive methods, infects computers secretly, encrypts personal files using specific cryptography and then demands a ransom to be paid in exchange of the decryptor that should allow decrypting those files.

There is no need to say that this kind of infection can cause a lot of problems. You can possibly lose your personal files for good or lose money. However, there are some alternative methods that can be used in order to deal with Whoopsie ransomware and decrypt locked files.

In this article we are are going to teach you how to successfully eliminate Whoopsie virus from your computer and give the best shot at restoring your damaged files. It’s not that complicated, however, specific knowledge is needed and you won’t be able to pull that off without decent security software.

Whoopsie Infection Features

So basically if your computer gets infected with Whoopsie virus, it will automatically start encrypting your files. Unfortunately, they employ AES encryption algorithm and that is bad for you as a victim, because this algorithm is very strong, difficult to decrypt and they are capable of encrypting most of your personal files. That being said, your personal files stored on a hard drive, such as text documents, .exe programs, audio and video files, images and so on will be damaged.

By saying “damaged” we have in mind that you won’t be able to open them, however, they are not lost forever. If you manage to successfully decrypt them and remove Whoopsie from a computer, they can be used once again.

Usually, ransomware adds some kind of unique extension to the end of every encrypted file. However, in this case, no extension is used. Regardless, the virus will let you know about its’ existence by displaying a ransom note that goes like this:

Do NOT close this Window! (otherwise your Files
are gone for ever and cant be recovered!)
Your files has been encrypted with the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and can’t be decrypted without a specific key (in this case a random generated String)

How to get the key?
Its easier than it seams! Just pay a small fee of 50€ in BTC to {paymentadress} and you will get your decryption key
Enter Key | End it!

Even though cyber criminals behind Whoopsie claim that your files will be removed for good after you close that window, it is not true – you can close it or shut your computer off, this pop-up window will be automatically opened next time you turn your computer on. And your files will still remain on your hard drive, only encrypted.

You are asked to pay “a small fee” of 50 euros in Bitcoins. In case you are wondering why they are referring to the amount in euros and not in USD, that’s because this infection originates from Germany. Regardless of that, users from all around the world can be affected.

We do not recommend to follow their instructions – paying the ransom is never a good idea. This way you would support cyber criminals and let them continue their job. Also, you can’t be sure that your files will be unlocked even if you do pay the ransom.

There are a lot of various ransomware infections, such as Locky Imposter, FileEncrypted or National Security Bureau Virus and we never suggest to pay the ransom. Instead of that, use other cyber security techniques to remove the virus and restore locked files. We will talk about them in a moment.

How Whoopsie Infects Computers

This sneaky virus is distributed as an attachment to emails. Cyber criminals send millions and millions of various emails with only one goal in mind – to trick users into opening files attached to them. Obviously, most of those emails fall into the spam folder and are never opened, yet some naive users do that and this way virus gets inside of computers.

Those letters are crafted using Social engineering techniques to force users into opening attached files. You can never avoid human mistakes and even users well aware of those threats sometimes fall for tricks like this, so we suggest to protect your computer with dedicated tools that can stop ransomware on the go.

You can use Plumbytes Anti-Malware, because it has a real-time protection feature that always runs in the background. So if malicious files of a ransomware try to be downloaded, it will detect this transaction and immediately stop it. Even more effective tool in a fight against ransomware would be IObit Malware Fighter. In case those malicious files manage to bypass real-time protection, their access to your personal files will be denied by the program, so it couldn’t encrypt them.

How To Delete Whoopsie Virus

Before you try to restore your encrypted files, you need to get rid of Whoopsie itself. That can be done by scanning your computer with Spyhunter. It will take only a couple of minutes of your time and the virus will be successfully detected and removed from your system for good.

Unfortunately, this won’t decrypt your files. If you have a backup copy of your files, you can simply replace encrypted files with them after the virus is removed. Also, you can try to perform a system restore and set your system back to the date when it was not infected.

We have crafted a step-by-step guide on how to deal with such virus – it can be found below this article. Follow all steps consistently in order to fix problems regarding Whoopsie ransomware.

Automatic Malware removal tools

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

 

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

Step 3. Restore Whoopsie 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 Whoopsie 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 Whoopsie 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.