AER Ransomware 🔐 (.AER File) — Removal Guide

The Aer virus belongs under the Dharma ransomware family. Ransomware of this type encrypts all user’s data on the computer (images, documents, excel tables, music, videos, etc) and adds its specific extension to every file, leaving the info.txt text files in each folder containing encrypted files.

What is Aer virus?

☝️ Aer is a Dharma family ransomware-type virus.

The scheme of renaming is the following: id-xxxxx.[contact-email].AeR. In the process of encryption, a file entitled, for instance, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.id-9ECFA84E.[[email protected]].AeR”.

In each folder containing the encoded files, a info.txt text file will appear. It is a ransom money note. It contains information on the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other remarks. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can get this tool after contacting [email protected] by email. That is it.

Aer Summary:

The info.txt file coming in package with the Aer malware states the following:

You want to return?


write email [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected] 

In the screenshot below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Aer looks like. Each filename has the “.AeR” extension appended to it.

How did my computer get infected with Aer ransomware?

There is a huge number of possible ways of ransomware injection.

Nowadays, there are three most exploited methods for criminals to have the Aer virus acting in your system. These are email spam, Trojan introduction and peer networks.

• Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan horse model. A Trojan is an object that infiltrates into your computer pretending to be something legal. Imagine, you download an installer for some program you want or an update for some program. But what is unpacked turns out to be a harmful agent that corrupts your data. As the update package can have any title and any icon, you’d better be sure that you can trust the source of the things you’re downloading. The best thing is to use the software developers’ official websites.
• As for the peer networks like BitTorrent or eMule, the danger is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Web. You can never guess what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy websites. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded files with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.

How do I get rid of ransomware?

It is crucial to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Aer virus will most likely deploy Vidar Stealer on your machine to get access to credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned spyware can extract your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling data.

How do I avert ransomware infection?

Aer ransomware doesn’t have a superpower, so as any similar malware.

You can protect your computer from its infiltration in several easy steps:

• Never open any emails from unknown senders with strange addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are expecting (how can you win in a lottery without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is likely something you are expecting, scrutinize all elements of the dubious email carefully. A hoax letter will always have a mistake.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojans are often spreaded as a part of cracked products, most likely as a “patch” which prevents the license check. Understandably, untrusted programs are very hard to tell from reliable software, as trojans sometimes have the functionality you need. You can try to find information on this software product on the anti-malware message boards, but the optimal solution is not to use such programs at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

🤔 Can I somehow access “.AeR” files?

Unfortunately, no. You need to decipher the “.AeR” files first. Then you will be able to open them.

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

It’s good if you have fаr-sightedly saved copies of these important files elsewhere. 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. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time.

🤔 What should I do if the Aer virus has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What can I do right now?

Some of the blocked data can be located elsewhere.

• If you sent or received your critical files by email, you could still download them from your online mailbox.
• You may have shared photographs or videos with your friends or relatives. Simply ask them to send those images back to you.
• If you have initially downloaded any of your files from the Internet, you can try to do it again.
• Your messengers, social networks pages, and cloud drives might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a laptop, phone, flash memory, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can employ data recovery programs² to retrieve your lost information since ransomware blocks the copies of your files, removing the authentic ones. In the tutorial below, you can see how to use PhotoRec for such a restoration, but remember: you won’t be able to do it before you remove the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

1. My files are encrypted by ransomware, what should I do now?
2. Here are Top 10 Data Recovery Software Of 2023.