ANIME Ransomware “Do you love anime?” — [email protected]

The Anime virus falls under the ransomware type of infection. Malware of such sort encrypts all the data on your PC (images, documents, excel tables, audio files, videos, etc) and adds its specific extension to every file, creating the I_LOVE_ANIME.txt files in every folder with the encrypted files.

Anime virus: what is known so far?

☝️ A scientifically correct denomination for the Anime would be “a ransomware-type malicious agent”.

Anime will add its own .anime extension to the name of each encoded file. For example, an image entitled “photo.jpg” will be turned into “photo.jpg.anime”. Likewise, the Excel table named “table.xlsx” will be altered to “table.xlsx.anime”, and so forth.

In every folder containing the encoded files, a I_LOVE_ANIME.txt text document will appear. It is a ransom money note. It contains information on the ways of paying the ransom and some other information. The ransom note most probably contains a description of how to buy the decryption tool from the racketeers. You can obtain this decrypting software after contacting [email protected] through email. That is it.

Anime summary:

The I_LOVE_ANIME.txt document accompanying the Anime ransomware states the following:

Hello, friends!
Do you love anime?
Your system has been compromised by our team.
We have blocked your files and also uploaded useful data from your computers
(doc, docx, pdf, xls and other office extensions) to our servers.
You have 2 days to contact us to discuss the terms of payment for our services to restore your files.
If you do not contact us or refuse to pay, we will place your stolen files in the public domain.
Do not change the file namesand extensions.
Do not try to decrypt the files yourself, they are encrypted using a good encryption algorithm.
Our contact:
[email protected]

In the image below, you can see what a folder with files encrypted by the Anime looks like. Each filename has the “.anime” extension appended to it.

How did my computer get infected with Anime ransomware?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware infiltration.

Nowadays, there are three most popular ways for criminals to have the Anime virus acting in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer-to-peer file transfer.

If you access your inbox and see emails that look like familiar notifications from utility services companies, postal agencies like FedEx, web-access providers, and whatnot, but whose addresser is unknown to you, beware of opening those emails. They are most likely to have a harmful file attached to them. Therefore, it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with letters like these.

As for the peer networks like torrent trackers or eMule, the danger 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 websites. 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 to remove the Anime virus?

It is important to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Anime virus will most likely install the Azorult Spyware on your computer to get access to credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That spyware² can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling data.

Often racketeers would decrypt some of your files so you know that they really have the decryption program. Since Anime virus is a relatively new ransomware, security software designers have not yet found a way to reverse its work. Nevertheless, the decryption instruments are constantly upgraded, so the effective countermeasure may soon be available.

Sure thing, if the hackers do the job of encrypting someone’s essential files, the desperate person will probably fulfill their demands. Despite that, paying to racketeers gives no guarantee that you’re getting your blocked information back. It is still risky. After receiving the ransom, the racketeers may send a wrong decryption code to the victim. There were reports about ransomware developers just disappearing after getting the ransom without even bothering to reply.

The best countermeasure to ransomware is to have aan OS restore point or the copies of your critical files in the cloud disk or at least on an external disk. Obviously, that might be not enough. Your most important thing could be that one you were working upon when it all started. Nevertheless, it is something. It is also wise to scan your drives with the antivirus program after the OS restoration.

Anime 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 Fgui, Eucy, Rtgf, and some others. The two basic differences between them and the Anime are the ransom amount and the encoding method. The rest is the same: documents become encoded, their extensions changed, ransom notes emerge in every directory containing encoded files.

Some lucky victims were able to decrypt the arrested files with the aid of the free tools provided by anti-malware developers. Sometimes the hackers accidentally send the decryption key to the victims in the ransom note. Such an extraordinary fail allows the injured part to restore the files. But of course, one should never rely on such a chance. Remember, ransomware is a bandits’ tool to lay their hands on the money of their victims.

How сan I avert ransomware attack?

Anime ransomware doesn’t have a endless power, so as any similar malware.

You can defend your computer from ransomware infiltration taking several easy steps:

• Ignore any letters from unknown mailers with strange addresses, or with content that has likely no connection to something you are waiting for (can you win in a lottery without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is likely something you are waiting for, scrutinize all elements of the questionable letter carefully. A fake letter will surely have mistakes.
• Never use cracked or untrusted programs. Trojan viruses are often spreaded as an element of cracked products, most likely as a “patch” to prevent the license check. But potentially dangerous programs are very hard to tell from reliable software, as trojans sometimes have the functionality you seek. Try to find information about this program on the anti-malware message boards, but the best way is not to use such software.

Reasons why I would recommend GridinSoft³

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”.

Frequently Asked Questions

🤔 How can I open “.anime” files?Is it possible to open“.anime” files?

Unfortunately, no. You need to decipher the “.anime” 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. Otherwise, you might try to employ System Restore. The only question is whether you have saved any Restore Points that would be helpful now. All other solutions require time.

🤔 What actions should I take if the Anime virus has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation key.

🤔 What can I do right now?

Some of the blocked data can be found elsewhere.

• If you exchanged your critical files via email, you could still download them from your online mail server.
• You may have shared photographs or videos with your friends or relatives. Just 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 media pages, and cloud disks might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old PC, a notebook, cellphone, external storage, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can employ file recovery utilities⁵ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encodes the copies of your files, removing the original ones. In the video below, you can learn how to recover your files with PhotoRec, but remember: you can do it only after you eradicate the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

Also, you can contact the following official 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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