DEMOCRACY WHISPERERS Ransomware (.DEMOC files) — Removal Guide

The Democracy whisperers virus belongs to the Babuk ransomware family. Ransomware of such sort encrypts all user’s data on the computer (photos, documents, excel sheets, music, videos, etc) and adds its own extension to every file, leaving the Restore Files.txt files in every directory which contains the encrypted files.

Democracy whisperers virus: what is known so far?

☝️ A strictly correct designation for the Democracy whisperers is “a Babuk family ransomware infection”.

Democracy whisperers appends its own .democ extension to the name of every encrypted file. For example, an image entitled “photo.jpg” will be changed to “photo.jpg.democ”. Just like the Excel file named “table.xlsx” will be renamed to “table.xlsx.democ”, and so forth.

In every folder that contains the encoded files, a Restore Files.txt text file will be found. It is a ransom money memo. It contains information about the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other information. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to purchase the decryption tool from the tamperers. That is it.

Democracy whisperers summary:

In the picture below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Democracy whisperers looks like. Each filename has the “.democ” extension added to it.

How did Democracy whisperers ransomware end up on my PC?

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

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

If you access your mailbox 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 strange to you, beware of opening those letters. They are most likely to have a malware item enclosed in them. Therefore, it is even riskier to open any attachments that come with letters like these.

As for the peer-to-peer file transfer protocols like torrent trackers or eMule, the threat 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 websites. Also, it is a good idea to scan the folder containing the downloaded items with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is complete.

How to remove the Democracy whisperers virus?

It is crucial to note that besides encrypting your data, the Democracy whisperers virus will probably install the Azorult Spyware on your PC to seize your credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That program can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling data.

Often tamperers would decode several of your files to prove that they really have the decryption program. Since Democracy whisperers virus is a relatively recent ransomware, safety measures developers have not yet found a method to undo its work. However, the decoding tools are frequently updated, so the solution may soon be available.

Of course, if the criminals succeed in encoding someone’s essential data, the hopeless person will probably fulfill their demands. Nevertheless, paying to racketeers gives no guarantee that you’re getting your files back. It is still dangerous. After getting the money, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption code to the injured party. There were reports about ransomware developers just disappearing after getting the money without even bothering to reply.

The optimal solution against ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your critical files in the cloud storage or at least on an external drive. Of course, that might be insufficient. Your most crucial thing could be that one you were working upon when it all happened. But at least it is something. It is also advisable to scan your drives with the antivirus program after the OS restoration.

Democracy whisperers 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, Udla, Tuid, Kxde, and some others. The two main differences between them and the Democracy whisperers are the ransom amount and the encoding method. The rest is the same: files become inaccessible, their extensions altered, ransom notes appear in each folder containing encoded files.

Some fortunate users were able to decode the blocked files with the aid of the free tools provided by anti-malware specialists. Sometimes the criminals mistakenly send the decryption key to the victims in the ransom readme. Such an extraordinary fail allows the victim to restore the files. But of course, one should never expect such a chance. Remember, ransomware is a tamperers’ instrument to lay their hands on the money of their victims.

How do I avoid ransomware injection?

Democracy whisperers ransomware has no endless power, neither does any similar malware.

You can defend your PC from its infiltration in three easy steps:

• Never open any emails 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 money prize draw without participating in it?). In case the email subject is likely something you are waiting for, check all elements of the questionable letter with caution. A hoax letter will surely have a mistake.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojans are often shared as a part of cracked products, possibly as a “patch” preventing the license check. But dubious programs are difficult to distinguish from reliable ones, as trojans may also have the functionality you need. Try to find information on this software product on the anti-malware message boards, but the best solution is not to use such programs at all.

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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

🤔 How can I open “.democ” files?Can I somehow access “.democ” files?

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

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

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. The rest of the methods require patience.

🤔 What should I do if the Democracy whisperers ransomware has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What can I do right now?

Some of the blocked files can be located elsewhere.

• If you exchanged your important files by email, you could still download them from your online mailbox.
• You might have shared images 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 downloading them again.
• Your messengers, social networks pages, and cloud disks might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a laptop, cellphone, flash memory, etc.

HINT: You can use file recovery utilities⁵ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encodes the copies of your files, removing the original ones. In the tutorial below, you can learn how to recover your files with PhotoRec, but remember: you can do it only after you remove the virus with an anti-malware 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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