RED TEAM Virus (.REDTM Files) — How to remove ransomware?

The Red team virus falls within the Babuk ransomware family. Malware of this type encrypts all user’s data on the computer (photos, text files, excel sheets, music, videos, etc) and appends its extra extension to every file, creating the HowToDecryptYourFiles.txt files in each directory which contains the encrypted files.

What is Red team virus?

☝️ A scientifically accurate designation for the Red team is “a Babuk family ransomware-type malicious agent”.

Red team adds its extra .REDTM extension to every file’s name. For instance, an image named “photo.jpg” will be changed to “photo.jpg.REDTM”. In the same manner, the Excel sheet with the name “table.xlsx” will be changed to “table.xlsx.REDTM”, and so forth.

In every directory that contains the encrypted files, a HowToDecryptYourFiles.txt file will be found. It is a ransom money note. It contains information about the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other remarks. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. That is how they do it.

Red team summary:

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

How did my machine catch Red team ransomware?

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

Nowadays, there are three most exploited ways for tamperers to have ransomware settled in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan infiltration and peer-to-peer file transfer.

If you access your mailbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services companies, delivery agencies like FedEx, web-access providers, and whatnot, but whose mailer is strange to you, be wary of opening those letters. They are very likely to have a malicious file enclosed in them. Thus it is even riskier to open any attachments that come with emails like these.

As for the peer networks like torrents 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. So you’d better be using trustworthy resources. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded objects with the antivirus as soon as the downloading is complete.

How to remove the Red team virus?

It is important to note that besides encrypting your data, the Red team virus will probably deploy the Azorult Spyware on your PC to get access to credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). That spyware³ can extract your logins and passwords from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

Sometimes criminals would decrypt some of your files so you know that they indeed have the decryption program. As Red team virus is a relatively new ransomware, safety measures engineers have not yet found a method to undo its work. Nevertheless, the decoding instruments are constantly upgraded, so the effective countermeasure may soon be available.

Understandably, if the malefactors succeed in encrypting someone’s critical files, the hopeless person will probably comply with their demands. Nevertheless, paying a ransom does not necessarily mean that you’re getting your data back. It is still dangerous. After receiving the money, the racketeers may send a wrong decryption code to the injured party. There were reports of hackers just disappearing after getting the money without even bothering to reply.

The optimal safety measure against ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your essential files in the cloud disk or at least on an external storage. Obviously, that might be not enough. The most important thing could be that one you were working on when it all went down. Nevertheless, it is something. It is also advisable to scan your drives with the antivirus program after the OS is rolled back.

There are other ransomware products, besides Red team, that work similarly. For instance, Xcbg, Qbaa, Kqgs, and some others. The two major differences between them and the Red team are the ransom amount and the method of encryption. The rest is the same: files become blocked, their extensions altered, ransom notes are created in every folder containing encrypted files.

Some lucky users were able to decrypt the arrested files with the aid of the free tools provided by anti-ransomware specialists. Sometimes the hackers accidentally send the decryption code to the victims in the ransom note. Such an epic fail allows the injured part to restore the files. But naturally, one should never rely on such a chance. Remember, ransomware is a tamperers’ technology to pull the money out of their victims.

How do I avoid ransomware infiltration?

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

You can defend yourself from ransomware attack within several easy steps:

• Ignore any emails from unknown mailers 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?). In case the email subject is likely something you are expecting, check all elements of the suspicious email with caution. A fake email will always have mistakes.
• Do not use cracked or untrusted software. Trojan viruses are often shared as an element of cracked products, possibly as a “patch” preventing the license check. But potentially dangerous programs are very hard to tell from trustworthy software, as trojans sometimes have the functionality you seek. You can try to find information on this program on the anti-malware message boards, but the best solution is not to use such software.

Reasons why I would recommend GridinSoft⁴

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 “.REDTM” files?Is it possible to open“.REDTM” files?

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

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

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. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time.

🤔 What should I do if the Red team malware has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation key.

🤔 And what should I do now?

Many of the encoded files might still be at your disposal

• 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 relatives. Just ask them to give 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.
• Maybe you still have the needed files on your old PC, a portable device, phone, flash memory, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can employ file recovery programs⁶ 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 use PhotoRec for such a restoration, but be advised: you can do it only after you kill the virus 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.

1. My files are encrypted by ransomware, what should I do now?
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