BL Virus Files of [email protected] Ransomware

Security expert Tomas Meskauskas was the person who, for the first time, described the Bl virus, which falls under the Dharma ransomware family. Ransomware of such sort encrypts all the data on your computer (photos, documents, excel sheets, music, videos, etc) and appends its own extension to every file.

What is known about the Blvirus?

☝️ A scientifically accurate description for the Bl would be “a Dharma family ransomware-type malicious agent”.

The renaming will be done according to this scheme: Bl. During the encryption, a file entitled, for instance, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.id-9ECFA84E.[[email protected]].Bl”.

The ransom note usually contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can get this decryptor after contacting [email protected] and [email protected] via email. That is pretty much the scheme of the crime.

Bl summary:

The note coming in package with the Bl malware states the following:

YOUR FILES ARE ENCRYPTED

1024

Don\'t worry, you can return all your files!
If you want to restore them, write to the mail: [email protected] YOUR ID -
If you have not answered by mail within 12 hours, write to us by another mail:[email protected]


ATTENTION!
We recommend you contact us directly to avoid overpaying agents


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.

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

How did Bl ransomware end up on my PC?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware infiltration.

There are currently three most exploited methods for malefactors to have ransomware settled in your system. These are email spam, Trojan introduction and peer file transfer.

If you access your inbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services providers, postal agencies like FedEx, web-access providers, and whatnot, but whose “from” field is unknown to you, be wary of opening those emails. They are very likely to have a viral file attached to them. So it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with emails like these.

As for the peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent or eMule, the danger is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet. You can never guess what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy resources. Also, it is reasonable to scan the folder containing the downloaded files with the antivirus as soon as the downloading is done.

How do I get rid of the Bl virus?

It is important to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Bl virus will most likely deploy the Azorult Spyware on your computer to seize your credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned program can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

Often criminals would decrypt several of your files to prove that they indeed have the decryption program. Since Bl virus is a relatively new ransomware, security software developers have not yet found a way to undo its work. However, the decryption tools are constantly upgraded, so the solution may soon arrive.

Of course, if the criminals succeed in encrypting victim’s essential data, the hopeless person will most likely comply with their demands. Despite that, paying a ransom does not necessarily mean that you’re getting your files back. It is still risky. After obtaining the money, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption key to the victim. There were reports of hackers just disappearing after getting the ransom without even bothering to reply.

The best solution against ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your critical files in the cloud drive or at least on an external drive. Surely, that might be not enough. The most important thing could be that file you were working on when it all started. Nevertheless, it is something. It is also reasonable to scan your PC for viruses with the antivirus program after the OS is rolled back.

Bl is not the only ransomware of its kind, since there are other specimens of ransomware out there that act in the same manner. For instance, Vfgj, Zaqi, Loov, and some others. The two basic differences between them and the Bl are the ransom amount and the method of encryption. The rest is almost identical: documents become blocked, their extensions changed, ransom notes are found in every directory containing encoded files.

Some fortunate users were able to decode the blocked files with the aid of the free software provided by anti-malware experts. Sometimes the hackers mistakenly send the decoding code to the victims in the ransom readme. Such an epic fail allows the victim to restore the files. But naturally, one should never expect such a chance. Make no mistake, ransomware is a criminals’ instrument to pull the money out of their victims.

How сan I avert ransomware infection?

Bl ransomware has no endless power, so as any similar malware.

You can armour yourself from its attack taking three easy steps:

• Never open any letters from unknown senders with strange addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are waiting for (how can you win in a lottery without participating in it?). If the email subject is more or less something you are waiting for, scrutinize all elements of the suspicious email carefully. A hoax email will always contain a mistake.
• Never use cracked or untrusted programs. Trojan viruses are often distributed as an element of cracked products, possibly under the guise of “patch” preventing the license check. Understandably, untrusted programs are very hard to distinguish from reliable software, because trojans sometimes have the functionality you need. You can try to find information about this software product on the anti-malware message boards, but the optimal solution is not to use such programs at all.

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”.

FAQ

🤔 Is it possible to open “.Bl” files?

There’s no way to do it, unless the files “.Bl” files are decrypted.

🤔 I really need to decrypt those “.Bl” files ASAP. How can I do that?

Hopefully, you have made a copy of those important files. If not, there is still a function of System Restore but it needs a Restore Point to be previously saved. The rest of the methods require patience.

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

🤔 And what should I do now?

Many of the encoded files might still be at your disposal

• If you exchanged your critical files by email, you could still download them from your online mail server.
• You might have shared photographs or videos with your friends or family members. Just ask them to send those pictures back to you.
• If you have initially downloaded any of your files from the Web, you can try downloading them again.
• Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud drives might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old PC, a laptop, phone, flash memory, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can use file recovery utilities⁵ to get your lost data back since ransomware encrypts the copies of your files, deleting the original ones. In the video below, you can learn how to use PhotoRec for such a restoration, but be advised: you can do it only after you remove 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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