.BACKUP Files Virus (CryptoMix) – Remove + Decrypt Your Files

Ventsislav Krastev

Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.

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This article has been created in order to explain to you what is the .BACKUP files virus nad how to remove this ransowmare from your computer plus decrypt files, encrypted by it without paying ransom.

CryptoMix ransomware has once more been updated to a newer varint, following the latest .FILE variant which came out earlier this year. The virus is now using the .BACKUP file extesnion which it ads to the files that have been encrypted by it and in addition to that, it also uses what appears to be a ransom note with the same name as the previous version, called _HELP_INSTRUCTION.TXT. This ransom note aims to get victims to to contect the cyber-criminals via one of their many e-mails, the main of which is [email protected]. Be advised to read this article if you have fallen victim to this variant of CryptoMix, since it aims to show you how you can remove this ransomware infection and restore files that have been encrypted by it for free.

Threat Summary

Name	.BACKUP Files Virus
Type	Ransomware, Cryptovirus
Short Description	Encrypts the files on your computer and asks you to pay ransom in order to decrypt them.
Symptoms	Files are encrypted with the file extension .BACKUP added after their names and the virus also drops a ransom note, called _HELP_INSTRUCTION.TXT.
Distribution Method	Spam Emails, Email Attachments, Executable files
Detection Tool	See If Your System Has Been Affected by .BACKUP Files Virus Download Malware Removal Tool
User Experience	Join Our Forum to Discuss .BACKUP Files Virus.
Data Recovery Tool	Windows Data Recovery by Stellar Phoenix Notice! This product scans your drive sectors to recover lost files and it may not recover 100% of the encrypted files, but only few of them, depending on the situation and whether or not you have reformatted your drive.

.BACKUP Files Virus – How Does It Spread

The main method which is used by the .BACKUP files ransomware is to target you via e-mail messages, mostly malicious spam. These e-mail campaigns use deceptive tactics to trick you into opening the attachments within them and they often pretend as the files attached are:

• Invoice for a purchase.
• An order confirmation file.
• A fake bank account report.
• New funds into your account.
• Receipt.
• A fake digital signature.

These e-mails are often pretending as if they come from big companies, like eBay, DHL, FedEx, PayPal and several others. In addition to this, the e-mails are also masked with fake claims that they originate from employees of those organizations, for example:

In addition to via e-mails, the malwar emay also use other methods to infect your PC, such as upload the infection file on torrent or other suspicious sites as a legitimate setup of a program, licence activator or a portable app of some sort.

.BACKUP Ransomware – Analysis

As soon as the .BACKUP files virus has infected your computer, it may immediately drop it’s payload files directly in the system folders of Windows:

• %AppData%
• %Local%
• %LocalLow%
• %Roaming%
• Receipt.
• %Temp%

Among the malicious files is the ransom note of the .BACKUP file variant of CryptoMix ransomware. It is named _HELP_INSTRUCTION.txt and just like previous versions of this virus, it aims to get victims to contact the crooks via e-mail:

Attention! All Your data was encrypted!

For specific informartion, please send us an email with Your ID number:

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Please send email to all email addresses! We will help You as soon as possible!

IMPORTANT: DO NOT USE ANY PUBLIC SOFTWARE! IT MAY DAMAGE YOUR DATA FOREVER!

DECRYPT-ID-{RANDOM NUMBER}

After this, the ransomware also drops another executable type of file in the %ProgramData% directory, which runs a script that stops some services of Windows, primarily related to the backups of your computer. This happens by running the following service stop commands in Windows Command prompt:

→ sc stop VVS
sc stop wscsvc
sc stop WinDefend
sc stop wuauserv
sc stop BITS
sc stop ERSvc
sc stop WerSvc
cmd.exe /C bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No
cmd.exe /C bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe” /C vssadmin.exe Delete Shadows /All /Quiet

The last of the commands aims to delete the shadow volume copies of the infected computer and hence make their recovery more difficult than before.

.BACKUP Ransomware – Encryption

The .BACKUP files virus starts the encryption process by firstly scanning for the files it aims to encrypt on your computer. These files include documents, videos, archives and many other often used types of files. The virus scans for them based on their file extensions, which are the following:

→ “PNG .PSD .PSPIMAGE .TGA .THM .TIF .TIFF .YUV .AI .EPS .PS .SVG .INDD .PCT .PDF .XLR .XLS .XLSX .ACCDB .DB .DBF .MDB .PDB .SQL .APK .APP .BAT .CGI .COM .EXE .GADGET .JAR .PIF .WSF .DEM .GAM .NES .ROM .SAV CAD Files .DWG .DXF GIS Files .GPX .KML .KMZ .ASP .ASPX .CER .CFM .CSR .CSS .HTM .HTML .JS .JSP .PHP .RSS .XHTML. DOC .DOCX .LOG .MSG .ODT .PAGES .RTF .TEX .TXT .WPD .WPS .CSV .DAT .GED .KEY .KEYCHAIN .PPS .PPT .PPTX ..INI .PRF Encoded Files .HQX .MIM .UUE .7Z .CBR .DEB .GZ .PKG .RAR .RPM .SITX .TAR.GZ .ZIP .ZIPX .BIN .CUE .DMG .ISO .MDF .TOAST .VCD SDF .TAR .TAX2014 .TAX2015 .VCF .XML Audio Files .AIF .IFF .M3U .M4A .MID .MP3 .MPA .WAV .WMA Video Files .3G2 .3GP .ASF .AVI .FLV .M4V .MOV .MP4 .MPG .RM .SRT .SWF .VOB .WMV 3D .3DM .3DS .MAX .OBJ R.BMP .DDS .GIF .JPG ..CRX .PLUGIN .FNT .FON .OTF .TTF .CAB .CPL .CUR .DESKTHEMEPACK .DLL .DMP .DRV .ICNS .ICO .LNK .SYS .CFG”

After this is done, the .BACKUP variant of CryptoMix ransomware also adds it’s file extension and completely renames the files as they appear to look like the image below shows:

Luckily, the fiels are decryptable for free so keep reading this article, if you have become a victim of this ransomware and want to decrypt your files for free.

Remove CryptoMix Ransomware and Decrypt .BACKUP Files for Free

In order to remove this variant of CryptoMix ransomware virus, we recommend that you follow the removal instructions underneath this article. They are divided in manual and automatic removal instructions and their end goal is to help you delete this infection whichever way seems easier for you.

After removing CryptoMix ransomware, you should follow the steps in the “Decryption Process” paragraph for .BACKUP files underneath the removal manual, so that you can decrypt your files for free, but before starting the decryption, we do advise that you backup your encrypted files, just in case.

1. Boot Your PC In Safe Mode to isolate and remove .BACKUP Files Virus files and objects

Boot Your PC Into Safe Mode

1. For Windows 7,XP and Vista. 2. For Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. Fix registry entries created by .BACKUP Files Virus on your PC.

For Windows XP, Vista, 7 systems:

1. Remove all CDs and DVDs, and then Restart your PC from the “Start” menu.
2. Select one of the two options provided below:

– For PCs with a single operating system: Press “F8” repeatedly after the first boot screen shows up during the restart of your computer. In case the Windows logo appears on the screen, you have to repeat the same task again.

– For PCs with multiple operating systems: Тhe arrow keys will help you select the operating system you prefer to start in Safe Mode. Press “F8” just as described for a single operating system.

3. As the “Advanced Boot Options” screen appears, select the Safe Mode option you want using the arrow keys. As you make your selection, press “Enter“.

4. Log on to your computer using your administrator account

While your computer is in Safe Mode, the words “Safe Mode” will appear in all four corners of your screen.

Step 1: Open the Start Menu

Step 2: Whilst holding down Shift button, click on Power and then click on Restart.
Step 3: After reboot, the aftermentioned menu will appear. From there you should choose Troubleshoot.

Step 4: You will see the Troubleshoot menu. From this menu you can choose Advanced Options.

Step 5: After the Advanced Options menu appears, click on Startup Settings.

Step 6: Click on Restart.

Step 7: A menu will appear upon reboot. You should choose Safe Mode by pressing its corresponding number and the machine will restart.

Some malicious scripts may modify the registry entries of your computer to change different settings. This is why manual clean up of your Windows Registry Database is strongly recommended. Since the tutorial on how to do this is a bit lenghty, we recommend following our instructive article about fixing registry entries.

2.Find malicious files created by .BACKUP Files Virus on your PC

Find malicious files created by .BACKUP Files Virus

1. For Windows 8, 8.1 and 10. 2. For Windows 7,XP and Vista.

For Newer Windows Operating Systems

Step 1:

On your keyboard press  + R and write explorer.exe in the Run text box and then click on the Ok button.

Step 2:

Click on your PC from the quick access bar. This is usually an icon with a monitor and its name is either “My Computer”, “My PC” or “This PC” or whatever you have named it.

Step 3:

Navigate to the search box in the top-right of your PC’s screen and type “fileextension:” and after which type the file extension. If you are looking for malicious executables, an example may be “fileextension:exe”. After doing that, leave a space and type the file name you believe the malware has created. Here is how it may appear if your file has been found:

N.B. We recommend to wait for the green loading bar in the navination box to fill up in case the PC is looking for the file and hasn’t found it yet.

For Older Windows Operating Systems

In older Windows OS’s the conventional approach should be the effective one:

Step 1:

Click on the Start Menu icon (usually on your bottom-left) and then choose the Search preference.

Step 2:

After the search window appears, choose More Advanced Options from the search assistant box. Another way is by clicking on All Files and Folders.

Step 3:

After that type the name of the file you are looking for and click on the Search button. This might take some time after which results will appear. If you have found the malicious file, you may copy or open its location by right-clicking on it.

Now you should be able to discover any file on Windows as long as it is on your hard drive and is not concealed via special software.

Automatically remove .BACKUP Files Virus by downloading an advanced anti-malware program

1. Remove .BACKUP Files Virus with SpyHunter Anti-Malware Tool and back up your data

Remove .BACKUP Files Virus with SpyHunter Anti-Malware Tool

1. Install SpyHunter to scan for and remove .BACKUP Files Virus.2. Scan with SpyHunter to Detect and Remove .BACKUP Files Virus. Back up your data to secure it against infections and file encryption by .BACKUP Files Virus in the future.

Step 1:Click on the “Download” button to proceed to SpyHunter’s download page.

Download

Malware Removal Tool

It is highly recommended to run a scan before purchasing the full version of the software to make sure that the current version of the malware can be detected by SpyHunter.

Step 2: Guide yourself by the download instructions provided for each browser.
Step 3: After you have installed SpyHunter, wait for it to automatically update.

Step1: After the update process has finished, click on the ‘Scan Computer Now’ button.

Step2: After SpyHunter has finished scanning your PC for any .BACKUP Files Virus files, click on the ‘Fix Threats’ button to remove them automatically and permanently.

Step3: Once the intrusions on your PC have been removed, it is highly recommended to restart it.

Back up your data to secure it against attacks in the future

IMPORTANT! Before reading the Windows backup instructions, we highly recommend to back up your data automatically with cloud backup and insure it against any type of data loss on your device, even the most severe. We recommend reading more about and downloading SOS Online Backup .

SOS Online Backup

.BACKUP Ransomware – Decryption Process

Before any decryption process by this virus begins, recommendations are to use an advanced anti-malware tool to remove the infection and then to back-up the encrypted files by creating several copies of them on different removable drives or in the cloud.

Then, we advise you to follow these steps:

Step #1: Download “CryptoMix Fix” tool from Avast’s website. Link to the download page, you can locate below:

https://www.avast.com/ransomware-decryption-tools#cryptomix

Make sure to save the file somewhere where you can easily find it:

Step #2: Run the program and click on the “Next” button.

Step #3: Choose the drive which you want to be scanned for encrypted files and click on “Next” once more. You can also add a folder that has important files, by clicking on the “Add Folder” button on the bottom-right:

Step #4: Find an original file and it’s encrypted analogue. If you struggle finding an original file, please check the default Windows folders of a non-infected PC with the same version of Windows as yours:

→ For newer Windows (8, 8.1, 10):
C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper
For Windows 7 and earlier:
C:\Users\Public\Pictures
C:\Users\{Username}\Pictures

Step #5: Upload the files in the blank fields of the next step of the Avast CryptoMix Fix decryptor:

Step #6: Paste the password from your version of CryptoMix in the next field in case you know it:

And now all that is left is to run the decryptor and it will begin to do it’s magic.

.FILE CryptoMix Decryption – The Bottom Line

As a conclusion, it is vital to know that if you have decrypted your files successfully, you are in great luck, because there are many ransomware victims who still haven’t. This is why we at SensorsTechForum are committed to educating users how to avoid such infections before they even happen. To learn how to prevent ransomware viruses and other malware infections from infecting your computer via e-mail, please read the related article below:

Ventsislav Krastev

Ventsislav has been covering the latest malware, software and newest tech developments at SensorsTechForum for 3 years now. He started out as a network administrator. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for discovery of new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management and then Network Administration, he found his passion within cybersecrurity and is a strong believer in basic education of every user towards online safety.

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