How To Remove ONION Ransomware And Recover Infected Data

Easy Way to Delete ONION Ransomware From Computer

ONION Ransomware is one more destructive file-encrypting threat that comes from the family of well-known Dharma ransomware. Similar to the other malware infections of same category, it also first sneaks into the targeted devices by stealth and then locks users’ essential files such as documents, images, audios, videos, PDFs etc. and makes them completely inaccessible or unusable. The sole purpose of the criminals behind such attack is to extort huge amount of ransom money from the victimized users. And so, soon after completing the encryption process, it displays a pop-up window and leaves a ransom note titled “FILES ENCRYPTED.txt” on the desktop and asks you to pay the attackers an amount of ransom to get the decryption tool and open the locked data.

ONION Ransomware instructs you to contact the hackers via the email address provided with the text file. The pop-up window states that you must send your unique ID to the crooks with the message. If they don’t get respond from the criminals within 12 hours then, they need to use the alternative email. At the end of the note, you are warned not to rename the encoded data and attempt to decrypt them using third-party software otherwise it may cause permanent data loss.

Text Presented in the pop-up Window:

YOUR FILES ARE ENCRYPTED
Don’t worry,you can return all your files!
If you want to restore them, follow this link:email [email protected] YOUR ID 1E857D00
If you have not been answered via the link within 12 hours, write to us by e-mail:[email protected]
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.

Text Presented in the “FILES ENCRYPTED.txt” file:

all your data has been locked us
You want to return?
write email [email protected] or [email protected] 

Should You pay the Ransom?

ONION Ransomware doesn’t leave any option to you other then dealing with the hackers and you may consider dealing with the hackers but still, we highly advise to not do so. There are various instances when crooks just disappeared after taking the ransom and delivered rogue application to them in the decryption software which only caused more threats to the system upon getting installed. Additionally, if you decide to pay the ransom, crooks can steal your sensitive data relating to banking details and misuse them for bad intention. Paying ransom to the attackers is not a clever thing to do under any circumstance as it will only encourage them to drop more viruses inside for further revenues. The first thing you need to do here is to remove ONION Ransomware from the computer immediately and then find any other method to recover the infected files.

How To Recover The Infected Files?

This hazardous malware is able to delete the shadow volume copies (temporary backup made by OS itself) of the compromised data that makes even more difficult for you to retrieve those files. And therefore, to restore the infected files use a powerful data-recovery application which you can download right here through the link provided under this article. Furthermore, you need to keep making regular backups by the help of which, you can easily recover the infected or lost files if such hazardous situation occurs whenever.

Intrusion of ONION Ransomware In Your System:

There are a number of precarious methods through which such kind of file-encrypting infections sneak into the targeted device. Some of them are: spam email campaigns, cracked software, torrent or porn sites, peer to peer file sharing, bundled free applications, suspicious websites, shareware and so on. However, the most common tactic to distribute ransomware infections is still spam emails. Sometimes you receive emails from unknown sender that are labeled as ‘important’, ‘crucial’. However, they include vicious attachments in forms of Ms Office documents, exe files, archive files, PDF files etc. which automatically get triggered and leads to the malware intrusion as soon as you click on it.

And hence, to prevent your computer from being infected by ONION Ransomware or other similar parasites, it is necessary to be very careful while opening suspicious mails as you never know what they are bringing to your PC. Delete all the emails from the machine that look questioning. Also, download any program from reliable or official sites only and always select “Custom/Advanced” option while installing the application as this configuration mode allow you to untick the tools that give a concerning look.

Quick Glance

Name- ONION Ransomware

Type- Ransomware, Crypto-virus

Description- Destructive malware that aims to encrypt users’ crucial files and then ask them to pay off for the decryption key/tool.

Extension- “.ONION (infected files are also appended with a unique ID and the attackers’ email address)”

Ransom note- Pop-up window and “FILES ENCRYPTED.txt”

Attackers’ contact- [email protected] and [email protected]

Symptoms- All of your important files and data are locked and can’t be opened without using a private key.

Distribution-Spam email campaigns, Executable files etc.

Damage- Causes permanent data loss and can also drop other pernicious infections onto the compromised device.

Removal- Manual and automatic guidelines as provided under this article

Other Malevolent Acts of ONION Ransomware:

Apart from locking your vital data, ONION Ransomware also creates tons of junk files in the internal memory of your computer which eat up enormous amount of memory resources and drag down the overall PC performance severely. It has ability to deactivate all the running security measures and Windows Firewalls and make the PC vulnerable for more notorious infections. This notorious threat might bring other Online parasites such as trojans, rootkits, worms, adware, spyware etc. in your work-station and turn the device into a malware-hub. It makes spiteful entries in Windows registries and changes its current settings in order to get automatically activated with each Window reboot. It messes with vital system files which assure efficient computer functioning and prevents many running apps as well as drivers from working normally. And hence, to prevent all these hazards from being occurred, you must delete ONION Ransomware from the computer without wasting any time.

Antimalware Details And User Guide

Click Here For Windows

Click Here For Mac

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

Step 2: Delete ONION Ransomware using “System Restore”

Step 1: Remove ONION 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 ONION Ransomware using “System Restore”

Log-in to the account infected with ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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 ONION 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.