HUNTER Virus 🔐 (.HUNTER Files) — How to Remove?

The Hunter virus falls under the Phobos ransomware family. Malware of such sort encrypts all user’s data on the computer (images, documents, excel sheets, audio files, videos, etc) and appends its own extension to every file, creating the info.txt files in each folder containing encrypted files.

What is Hunter virus?

☝️ Hunter is a Phobos family ransomware-type infection.

The renaming will be done according to this pattern: id[xxxxxx].[contact-email].HUNTER. During the encryption, a file named, for instance, “report.docx” will be turned into “report.docx.id[9ECFA84E-3335].[[email protected]].HUNTER”.

In each folder with the encoded files, a info.txt text document will appear. It is a ransom money memo. Therein you can find information about the ways of paying the ransom and some other information. The ransom note most probably contains a description of how to purchase the decryption tool from the ransomware developers. You can obtain this decoding tool after contacting [email protected] via email. That is it.

Hunter Overview:

The info.txt document coming in package with the Hunter malware provides the following frustrating information:

!!!All of your files are encrypted!!!
To decrypt them send e-mail to this address: [email protected].
If we don\'t answer in 24h, send messge to telegram: @Online7_365

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

How did my computer get infected with Hunter ransomware?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware injection.

There are currently three most popular ways for criminals to have ransomware planted in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer-to-peer networks.

• Another thing the hackers might try is a Trojan horse scheme. A Trojan is a program that infiltrates into your computer disguised as something different. For instance, you download an installer for some program you need or an update for some software. But what is unboxed turns out to be a harmful agent that corrupts your data. Since the installation wizard can have any name and any icon, you’d better be sure that you can trust the source of the things you’re downloading. The optimal way is to use the software developers’ official websites.
• As for the peer networks like torrents 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. So you’d better be using 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 done.

How do I get rid of ransomware?

It is crucial to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Hunter virus will probably deploy Vidar Stealer on your machine to seize your credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That spyware can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

How do I avoid ransomware infection?

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

You can protect your PC from its attack taking several easy steps:

• Never open any emails from unknown mailboxes with unknown addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are waiting for (how can you win in a lottery without even taking part in it?). In case the email subject is likely something you are expecting, scrutinize all elements of the questionable letter with caution. A hoax letter will always contain mistakes.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojans are often spreaded as a part of cracked software, most likely as a “patch” to prevent the license check. But dubious programs are difficult to distinguish from trustworthy software, because trojans may also have the functionality you need. You can try to find information about this software product on the anti-malware message boards, but the best solution is not to use such programs at all.

FAQ

🤔 Is it possible to open “.HUNTER” files?

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

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

Hopefully, you have made a copy of those important files. Otherwise, you might try to employ System Restore. The only question is whether you have saved any Restore Points that would be helpful now. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time.

🤔 What to do if the Hunter malware has blocked my computer and I can’t get the activation key.

🤔 And what should I do now?

Some of the encrypted files can be found elsewhere.

• If you sent or received your important files through 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 Web, you can try doing it again.
• Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud disks might have all those files too.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a notebook, cellphone, flash memory, etc.

HINT: You can employ file recovery utilities² to retrieve your lost information since ransomware arrests the copies of your files, removing the authentic ones. In the video below, you can see how to recover your files with PhotoRec, but remember: you won’t be able to do it before you kill the ransomware itself with an anti-malware program.

1. My files are encrypted by ransomware, what should I do now?
2. Here are Best Data Recovery Software Of 2024.