ACUTE Virus (.acute Files) — How to remove Ransomware?

The Acute virus belongs under the Phobos ransomware family. A harmful program of this type encrypts all the data on your PC (images, documents, excel sheets, audio files, videos, etc) and appends its own extension to every file, leaving the info.txt text files in each directory with the encrypted files.

What is Acute virus?

☝️ A strictly accurate denomination for the Acute is “a Phobos family ransomware malicious agent”.

The renaming will be done according to the following scheme: id[*******].[email address].acute. As a part of encryption, a file entitled, for instance, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.id[1E857D00-1096].[[email protected]].acute”.

In each folder containing the encrypted files, a info.txt file will be created. It is a ransom money memo. Therein you can find information about the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other remarks. The ransom note usually contains a description of how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can get this decryptor after contacting [email protected] via email. That is basically the scheme of the felony.

Acute outline:

The info.txt file accompanying the Acute ransomware provides the following discouraging information:

!!! All of your files are encrypted !!!
To decrypt them send e-mail to this address: [email protected].
If there is no response from our mail, you can install the Jabber client and write to us in support of [email protected]

In the picture below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Acute looks like. Each filename has the “.id[*******].[email address].acute” extension added to it.

How did my machine catch Acute ransomware?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware injection.

Nowadays, there are three most exploited methods for criminals to have the Acute virus planted in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan infiltration and peer-to-peer networks.

If you open your mailbox and see emails that look just like notifications from utility services providers, postal agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose sender is unknown to you, be wary of opening those emails. They are very likely to have a viral item attached to them. Therefore, it is even riskier to download any attachments that come with emails like these.

As for the peer networks like BitTorrent or eMule, the threat is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet. You can never know what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy resources. Also, it is a good idea to scan the folder containing the downloaded objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.

How do I get rid of the Acute virus?

It is important to note that besides encrypting your files, the Acute virus will most likely install the Azorult Spyware on your computer to get access to credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned spyware³ can extract your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling data.

Sometimes criminals would decode few of your files so you know that they indeed have the decryption program. As Acute virus is a relatively recent ransomware, security software engineers have not yet found a way to reverse its work. However, the anti-ransomware tools are frequently updated, so the effective countermeasure may soon be available.

Understandably, if the malefactors do the job of encrypting someone’s critical data, the desperate person will probably fulfill their demands. Despite that, paying to racketeers gives no guarantee that you’re getting your data back. It is still dangerous. After receiving the money, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption key to the victim. There were reports of criminals just vanishing after getting the ransom without even writing back.

The best solution against ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your essential files in the cloud storage or at least on an external storage. Obviously, that might be not enough. Your most important thing could be that file you were working on when it all started. Nevertheless, it is something. It is also advisable to scan your drives with the anti-malware utility after the OS is rolled back.

Acute is not the only ransomware of its kind, since there are other specimens of ransomware out there that act in the same manner. Examples of those are Qbaa, Ooii, Fgui, and some others. The two main differences between them and the Acute are the ransom amount and the method of encryption. The rest is almost identical: files become encrypted, their extensions altered, ransom notes are found in each folder containing encoded files.

Some fortunate victims were able to decode the blocked files with the help of the free tools provided by anti-ransomware experts. Sometimes the criminals accidentally send the decryption code to the victims in the ransom note. Such an epic fail allows the user to restore the files. But of course, one should never expect such a chance. Remember, ransomware is a tamperers’ tool to lay their hands on the money of their victims.

How сan I avoid ransomware attack?

Acute ransomware has no superpower, neither does any similar malware.

You can defend your computer from ransomware injection within three easy steps:

• Never open any emails from unknown mailboxes with unknown addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are expecting (can you win in a money prize draw without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is likely something you are expecting, scrutinize all elements of the dubious letter carefully. A fake letter will always have mistakes.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojans are often shared as a part of cracked software, possibly as a “patch” preventing the license check. Understandably, potentially dangerous programs are difficult to tell from reliable software, as trojans may also have the functionality you need. You can try to find information on this program on the anti-malware forums, but the optimal way is not to use such programs at all.

Reasons why I would recommend GridinSoft⁴

Download Removal Tool.

Run the setup file.

Press “Install” button.

Once installed, Anti-Malware will automatically run.

Wait for the Anti-Malware scan to complete.

Click on “Clean Now”.

FAQ

🤔 Are the “.id[*******].[email address].acute” files accessible?

Unfortunately, no. You need to decipher the “.id[*******].[email address].acute” files first. Then you will be able to open them.

🤔 The encrypted files are very important to me. How can I decrypt them quickly?

Hopefully, you have made a copy of those important files. In case you haven’t, there is still a chance that you do have a Restore Point from some time ago to roll back the whole system to the moment when it had no virus yet, but already had your files. The rest of the methods require patience.

🤔 What to do if the Acute virus has blocked my computer and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What could help the situation right now?

Many of the encoded files might still be within your reach

• If you exchanged your important files through email, you could still download them from your online mailbox.
• You might have shared photographs or videos with your friends or relatives. Just ask them to send those pictures back to you.
• If you have initially got any of your files from the Internet, you can try doing it again.
• Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud storage might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a notebook, cellphone, memory stick, etc.

HINT: You can use data recovery programs⁶ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encrypts the copies of your files, deleting the original ones. In the video below, you can see how to use PhotoRec for such a recovery, but remember: you won’t be able to do it before you eradicate the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

Also, you can contact the following governmental fraud and scam sites to report this attack:

• In the United States: On Guard Online;
• In Canada: Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre;
• In the United Kingdom: Action Fraud;
• In Australia: SCAMwatch;
• In New Zealand: Consumer Affairs Scams;
• In France: Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information;
• In Germany: Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik;
• In Ireland: An Garda Síochána;

To report the attack, you can contact local executive boards. For instance, if you live in USA, you can have a talk with FBI Local field office, IC3 or Secret Service.

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