NITRO22 Virus (.NITRO Files) — How to Remove?

The Nitro22 virus falls within the ransomware type of malicious agent. A harmful program of this type encrypts all the data on your computer (photos, text files, excel sheets, audio files, videos, etc) and adds its extra extension to every file, creating the #Decryption#.txt text files in every folder containing encrypted files.

What is known about the Nitro22virus?

☝️ A strictly correct denomination for the Nitro22 would be “a ransomware-type malicious agent”.

Nitro22 will append its extra .nitro extension to the name of every encoded file. For instance, an image named “photo.jpg” will be altered to “photo.jpg.nitro”. Just like the Excel file with the name “table.xlsx” will end up as “table.xlsx.nitro”, and so on.

In every directory containing the encoded files, a #Decryption#.txt text file will appear. It is a ransom money note. Therein you can find information about the ways of paying the ransom and some other remarks. The ransom note usually contains a description of how to buy the decryption tool from the Nitro22 developers. That is how they do it.

Nitro22 overview:

In the image below, you can see what a folder with files encrypted by the Nitro22 looks like. Each filename has the “.nitro” extension appended to it.

How did my computer get infected with Nitro22 ransomware?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware infiltration.

Nowadays, there are three most popular ways for evil-doers to have the Nitro22 virus working in your system. These are email spam, Trojan infiltration and peer-to-peer networks.

If you access your mailbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services providers, delivery agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose addresser is unknown to you, be wary of opening those emails. They are most likely to have a ransomware item enclosed in them. Thus it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with letters 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 Web. 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 folder containing the downloaded items with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.

How do I get rid of the Nitro22 virus?

It is important to note that besides encrypting your files, the Nitro22 virus will most likely deploy the Azorult Spyware on your computer to get access to credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned spyware² can derive your logins and passwords from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

Often racketeers would decrypt some of your files to prove that they really have the decryption program. Since Nitro22 virus is a relatively new ransomware, anti-malware engineers have not yet found a way to reverse its work. However, the anti-ransomware tools are frequently updated, so the effective countermeasure may soon be available.

Sure thing, if the criminals succeed in encoding victim’s critical data, the hopeless person will most likely fulfill their demands. Nevertheless, paying to criminals gives no guarantee that you’re getting your data back. It is still risky. After getting the ransom, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption key to the injured party. There were reports about racketeers simply vanishing after getting the money without even writing back.

The optimal solution against ransomware is to have aan OS restore point or the copies of your essential files in the cloud storage or at least on an external disk. Obviously, that might be insufficient. Your most crucial thing could be that file you were working on when it all happened. But at least it is something. It is also reasonable to scan your drives with the antivirus program after the OS restoration.

Nitro22 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 Ggwq, Llqq, Lltt, and some others. The two main differences between them and the Nitro22 are the ransom amount and the method of encryption. The rest is the same: files become encrypted, their extensions altered, ransom notes are created in every folder containing encoded files.

Some lucky users were able to decode the blocked files with the help of the free software provided by anti-malware developers. Sometimes the hackers mistakenly send the decryption key to the victims in the ransom readme. Such an extraordinary fail allows the user to restore the files. But of course, one should never rely on such a chance. Make no mistake, ransomware is a criminals’ technology to pull the money out of their victims.

How do I avoid ransomware attack?

Nitro22 ransomware has no endless power, neither does any similar malware.

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

• Ignore any letters from unknown mailboxes with strange addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are expecting (how can you win in a lottery without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is likely something you are waiting for, check all elements of the questionable letter carefully. A fake letter will always contain a mistake.
• Do not use cracked or unknown programs. Trojans are often shared as a part of cracked products, most likely under the guise of “patch” preventing the license check. But untrusted programs are very hard to tell from reliable ones, because trojans may also have the functionality you seek. You can try searching for information about this software product 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”.

FAQ

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

Negative. That is why ransomware is so frustrating. Until you decode the “.nitro” files you will not be able to access them.

🤔 What should I do to make my files accessible as fast as possible?

Hopefully, you have made a copy of those important files. 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. All other solutions require time.

🤔 What actions should I take if the Nitro22 virus has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation key.

🤔 What could help the situation right now?

Some of the blocked files can be found elsewhere.

• If you sent or received your important files via email, you could still download them from your online mailbox.
• You may have shared images or videos with your friends or family members. Just ask them to give those pictures back to you.
• If you have initially got 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 PC, a notebook, phone, memory stick, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can use file recovery utilities⁵ to get your lost data back since ransomware encrypts 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 eradicate the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

Also, you can contact the following governmental 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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