MOON Ransomware ([email protected]) @somran2024

Security expert Tomas Meskauskas was the person who, for the first time, described the Moon virus, which belongs with the ransomware type of malicious agent. A harmful program of such sort encrypts all user’s data on the PC (photos, text files, excel tables, audio files, videos, etc) and appends its specific extension to every file, creating the README.txt files in every directory which contains the encrypted files.

What is known about the Moon virus?

The renaming will be done by this pattern: .moon. In the process of encryption, a file entitled, for instance, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.BA3484B5-A99A-8A49-AD7D-5C03B1A5A254.moon”.

In every directory with the encoded files, a README.txt text file will be created. It is a ransom money memo. It contains information on the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other remarks. The ransom note usually contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can obtain this decryptor after contacting [email protected], [email protected] (Email), @somran2024 (Telegram) through email. That is basically the scheme of the malefaction.

Moon Summary:

The README.txt document coming in package with the Moon ransomware provides the following discouraging information:

YOUR FILES ARE ENCRYPTED

Your files, documents, photos, databases and other important files are encrypted.

You are not able to decrypt it by yourself! The only method of recovering files is to purchase an unique private key.
Only we can give you this key and only we can recover your files.

To be sure we have the decryptor and it works you can send an email: [email protected] and decrypt one file for free.
But this file should be of not valuable!


Do you really want to restore your files?
Write to email: [email protected]
Reserved email: [email protected]
telegram: @somran2024


Attention!
 * 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.
 * We have been in your network for a long time. We know everything about your company most of your information has already been downloaded to our server. We recommend you to do not waste your time if you dont wont we start 2nd part.
 * You have 24 hours to contact us.
 * Otherwise, your data will be sold or made public.

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

How did my computer get infected with Moon ransomware?

There are many possible ways of ransomware injection.

Nowadays, there are three most popular methods for evil-doers to have ransomware working in your system. These are email spam, Trojan infiltration and peer-to-peer file transfer.

• If you access your inbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services providers, postal agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose “from” field is strange to you, beware of opening those letters. They are most likely to have a harmful file attached to them. Thus it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with letters like these.
• Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan virus model. A Trojan is a program that gets into your machine disguised as something different. For instance, you download an installer of some program you want or an update for some software. However, what is unboxed reveals itself a harmful program that encrypts your data. Since the update file can have any name and any icon, you’d better be sure that you can trust the resource of the files you’re downloading. The optimal way is to use the software companies’ official websites.
• As for the peer-to-peer file transfer protocols like torrent trackers 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 websites. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded objects with the antivirus as soon as the downloading is done.

How to remove ransomware?

It is important to note that besides encrypting your files, the Moon virus will probably deploy Vidar Stealer on your PC to seize your credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That program can extract your logins and passwords from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

How to avert ransomware injection?

Moon ransomware has no superpower, so as any similar malware.

You can armour yourself from ransomware injection in three easy steps:

• Ignore any emails from unknown senders with unknown addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are waiting for (can you win in a money prize draw without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is more or less something you are expecting, check all elements of the suspicious letter with caution. A hoax letter will surely contain a mistake.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojan viruses are often distributed as a part of cracked products, most likely as a “patch” which prevents the license check. Understandably, dubious programs are difficult to tell from reliable software, because trojans sometimes have the functionality you need. You can try searching for information about this software product on the anti-malware message boards, but the optimal solution is not to use such programs at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

🤔 Are the “.moon” files accessible?

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

🤔 I really need to decrypt those “.moon” 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 Moon virus has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What can I do right now?

Many of the encoded files might still be within your reach

• If you exchanged your important files by email, you could still download them from your online mail server.
• You might 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 networks pages, and cloud disks might have all those files too.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old PC, a portable device, phone, flash memory, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can employ data recovery programs¹ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encodes the copies of your files, deleting the authentic ones. In the tutorial below, you can learn how to recover your files with PhotoRec, but remember: you can do it only after you kill the virus with an antivirus program.

1. Here are Best Data Recovery Software Of 2024.