How to remove Karen Ransomware: Restore locked files

Easy methods to delete Karen Ransomware in Windows 10/8/7 computer

Karen Ransomware is very notorious file virus considered as ransomware. This ransomware-type malware operates by encrypting all types of files including documents, databases, ppt, xlx, css, html, text, audios, videos, images, pdf and other formats of files stored in your computer. The purpose of attackers behind this ransomware is to lock all files of your computer and makes them inaccessible means you can’t access or open your personal files anymore. It modifies each file by adding ‘.karen’ file extension to the original filename.

For example, it renames ‘1.png’ filename to ‘1.png.karen’. After encryption process is finished, ‘README.txt’ text files as ransom notes are dropped into each folder of your computer that contains encrypted files. Karen Ransomware’s ransom note doesn’t provide any contact or payment information means you could not contact the cybercriminals behind this ransomware and pay ransom money for the decryption keys/software. This ransomware opens a website/webpage asking you to enter unique identifier (UID) and no UID is provided as well. As mentioned, this ransomware doesn’t provided any information on how to recover your locked files means the ransomware is still in development.

In sort, you can’t decrypt your files encrypted by Karen Ransomware because the developer doesn’t provide any instructions on how you to decrypt data. Also, there is no third-party decryption software available that can decrypt files locked by this nasty ransomware at this moment. However, one possible way to recover your all locked files is to restore them from backup. You should make sure you have strong backup of your all locked files on some safe storage media like external hard drive, USB flash drive, DVD/CD or on cloud storage.

You can restore you all locked data from backup you have created on some storage media. But before that, it is important to find and remove Karen Ransomware related files in computer as soon as possible. You can remove all files and components relating to this ransomware using our manual and automatic method of malware removal. After malware or ransomware removal, you can go for data recovery solution to restore your locked files.

How did you get Karen Ransomware in Windows 10/8/7 computer?

Email Spam Campaign or Malspam Campaign is the mostly used mechanism by cybercriminals to spread Trojans, ransomware or malware in your computer. They use ‘Urgent’, ‘Official’, ‘Priority’, ‘Important’ or other similar keywords in subject/title of emails as proof that they are genuine senders. They send some false-positive emails which contain some malicious hyperlinks or attachments. The attachments can be Microsoft Office Documents, PDF, RAR, ZIP, JavaScript or other formats of files. Once opened , it executes certain codes/scripts to install malware or ransomware in your computer. For example, Microsoft Office Documents as malicious attachments infect computer by enabling malicious macro commands.

How to protect your system against Ransomware-type malware?

It is strongly recommended not to open any attachments or hyperlinks presented in spam or irrelevant emails. You should check if ‘Anti-Spam Filter’ feature is enabled in your mail service. This feature when enabled, all spammy emails will automatically be delivered to ‘Spam’ folder of your email service. You should never reply to spam or irrelevant emails at any cases. Cybercriminals can take advantages of bugs or issues in software installed in computer and can trigger malware or viruses in computer by exploiting the bugs. So, you should keep up-to-date your operating system and all other software installed in computer. Also, you should have some powerful antivirus software installed in computer with latest updates that could help you to find and remove all threats including latest malware in computer.

Let’s take a look at ransom note:

Can I speak to your manager??

Tell him that Karen was here. Look at your damn mails!

Antimalware Details And User Guide

Click Here For Windows

Click Here For Mac

Step 1: Remove Karen Ransomware through “Safe Mode with Networking”

Step 2: Delete Karen Ransomware using “System Restore”

Step 1: Remove Karen Ransomware through “Safe Mode with Networking”

For Windows XP and Windows 7 users: Boot the PC in “Safe Mode”. Click on “Start” option and continuously press on F8 during the start process until the “Windows Advanced Option” menu appears on the screen. Choose “Safe Mode with Networking” from the list.

Now, a windows homescreen appears on the desktop and work-station is now working on “Safe mode with networking”.

For Windows 8 Users: Go to the “Start Screen”. In the search results select settings, type “Advanced”. In the “General PC Settings” option, choose “Advanced startup” option. Again, click on the “Restart Now” option. The work-station boots to “Advanced Startup Option Menu”. Press on “Troubleshoot” and then “Advanced options” button.  In the “Advanced Option Screen”, press on “Startup Settings”. Again, click on “Restart” button. The work-station will now restart in to the “Startup Setting” screen. Next is to press F5 to boot in Safe Mode in Networking.

For Windows 10 Users: Press on Windows logo and on the “Power” icon. In the newly opened menu, choose “Restart” while continuously holding “Shift” button on the keyboard. In the new open “Choose an option” window, click on “Troubleshoot” and then on the “Advanced Options”. Select “Startup Settings” and press on “Restart”. In the next window, click on “F5” button on the key-board.

Step 2: Delete Karen Ransomware using “System Restore”

Log-in to the account infected with Karen Ransomware. Open the browser and download a legitimate anti-malware tool. Do a full System scanning. Remove all the malicious detected entries.

In case if you cannot start the PC in “Safe Mode with Networking”, Try using “System Restore”

• During the “Startup”, continuously press on F8 key until the “Advanced Option” menu appears. From the list, choose “Safe Mode with Command Prompt” and then press “Enter”

• In the new opened command prompt, enter “cd restore” and then press “Enter”.

• Type: rstrui.exe and Press “ENTER”

• Click “Next” on the new windows

• Choose any of the “Restore Points” and click on “Next”. (This step will restore the work-station to its earlier time and date prior to Karen Ransomware infiltration in the PC.

• In the newly opened windows, press on “Yes”.

Once your PC gets restored to its previous date and time, download the recommended anti-malware tool and perform a deep scanning in order to remove Karen Ransomware files if they left in the work-station.

In order to restore the each (separate) file by this ransomware, use “Windows Previous Version” feature. This method is effective when “System Restore Function” is enabled in the work-station.

Important Note: Some variants of Karen Ransomware delete the “Shadow Volume Copies” as well hence this feature may not work all the time and is applicable for selective computers only.

How to Restore Individual Encrypted File:

In order to restore a single file, right click on it and go to “Properties”. Select “Previous Version” tab. Select a “Restore Point” and click on “Restore” option.

In order to access the files encrypted by Karen Ransomware, you can also try using “Shadow Explorer”. In order to get more information on this application, press here.

Important: Data Encryption Ransomware are highly dangerous and it is always better that you take precautions to avoid its attack on your work-station. It is advised to use a powerful anti-malware tool in order to get protection in real-time. With this help of “SpyHunter”, “group policy objects” are implanted in the registries in order to block harmful infections like Karen Ransomware.

Also, In Windows 10, you get a very unique feature called “Fall Creators Update” that offer “Controlled Folder Access” feature in order to block any kind of encryption to the files. With the help of this feature, any files stored in the locations such as “Documents”, “Pictures”, “Music”, “Videos”, “Favorites” and “Desktop” folders are safe by default.

It is very important that you install this “Windows 10 Fall Creators Update” in your PC to protect your important files and data from ransomware encryption. The more information on how to get this update and add an additional protection form rnasomware attack has been discussed here.

How to Recover the Files Encrypted by Karen Ransomware?

Till now, you would have understood that what had happed to your personal files that got encrypted and how you can remove the scripts and payloads associated with Karen Ransomware in order to protect your personal files that has not been damaged or encrypted until now. In order to retrieve the locked files, the depth information related to “System Restore” and “Shadow Volume Copies” has already been discussed earlier. However, in case if you are still unable to access the encrypted files then you can try using a data recovery tool.

Use of Data Recovery Tool

This step is for all those victims who have already tries all the above mentioned process but didn’t find any solution. Also it is important that you are able to access the PC and can install any software. The data recovery tool works on the basis of System scanning and recovery algorithm. It searches the System partitions in order to locate the original files which were deleted, corrupted or damaged by the malware. Remember that you must not re-install the Windows OS otherwise the “previous” copies will get deleted permanently. You have to clean the work-station at first and remove Karen Ransomware infection. Leave the locked files as it is and follow the steps mentioned below.

Step1: Download the software in the work-station by clicking on the “Download” button below.

Step2: Execute the installer by clicking on downloaded files.

Step3: A license agreement page appears on the screen. Click on “Accept” to agree with its terms and use. Follow the on-screen instruction as mentioned and click on “Finish” button.

Step4: Once the installation gets completed, the program gets executed automatically. In the newly opened interface, select the file types that you want to recover and click on “Next”.

Step5: You can select the “Drives” on which you want the software to run and execute the recovery process. Next is to click on the “Scan” button.

Step6: Based on drive you select for scanning, the restore process begins. The whole process may take time depending on the volume of the selected drive and number of files. Once the process gets completed, a data explorer appears on the screen with preview of that data that is to be recovered. Select the files that you want to restore.

Step7. Next is to locate the location where you want to saver the recovered files.