MILLENNIUM Rasnomware — [[email protected]].ME

The Millennium virus falls within the Dharma ransomware family. A harmful program of this type encrypts all the data on your PC (images, text files, excel tables, music, videos, etc) and appends its extra extension to every file.

What is Millennium virus?

☝️ A strictly accurate denomination for the Millennium would be “a Dharma family ransomware-type infection”.

The renaming will be done according to this pattern: [[email protected]].ME. As a part of encryption, a file entitled, for example, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.id-162A400B.[[email protected]].ME”.

The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can get this decrypting software after contacting [email protected] through email. That is it.

Millennium abstract:

In the screenshot below, you can see what a folder with files encrypted by the Millennium looks like. Each filename has the “.[[email protected]].ME” extension added to it.

How did Millennium ransomware end up on my PC?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware injection.

There are currently three most popular methods for tamperers to have ransomware planted in your system. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer-to-peer networks.

If you access your mailbox and see emails that look like familiar notifications from utility services companies, postal agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose addresser is strange to you, beware of opening those emails. They are most likely to have a malware item enclosed in them. Therefore, it is even more dangerous to open any attachments that come with emails like these.

As for the peer networks like torrent trackers or eMule, the threat is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Web. You can never know 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 objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.

How do I get rid of the Millennium virus?

It is crucial to note that besides encrypting your files, the Millennium virus will probably deploy the Azorult Spyware on your machine to seize your credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned program can extract your logins and passwords from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

Sometimes racketeers would unblock several of your files to prove that they indeed have the decryption program. As Millennium virus is a relatively new ransomware, security software engineers have not yet found a way to reverse its work. However, the decryption instruments are constantly upgraded, so the solution may soon be available.

Sure thing, if the evildoers succeed in encrypting victim’s essential data, the hopeless person will most likely fulfill their demands. Despite that, paying to criminals gives no guarantee that you’re getting your blocked information back. It is still dangerous. After obtaining the ransom, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption code to the victim. There were reports of ransomware developers just disappearing after getting the money without even writing back.

The best solution against ransomware is to have aan OS restore point or the copies of your critical files in the cloud drive or at least on an external storage. Surely, that might be insufficient. The most crucial thing could be that file you were working on when it all started. But at least it is something. It is also wise to scan your PC for viruses with the antivirus program after the system is rolled back.

There are other ransomware products, besides Millennium, that work similarly. Examples of those are Wdlo, Kqgs, Udla, and some others. The two basic differences between them and the Millennium are the ransom amount and the encoding method. The rest is almost identical: documents become blocked, their extensions changed, ransom notes are created in each directory containing encoded files.

Some lucky people were able to decrypt the blocked files with the help of the free software provided by anti-malware experts. Sometimes the racketeers accidentally send the decryption key to the wronged in the ransom note. Such an extraordinary fail allows the victim to restore the files. But of course, one should never expect such a chance. Make no mistake, ransomware is a tamperers’ technology to lay their hands on the money of their victims.

How to avoid ransomware injection?

Millennium ransomware has no endless power, so as any similar malware.

You can defend your system from its attack taking several easy steps:

• Never open any letters from unknown mailboxes with unknown addresses, or with content that has likely no connection to something you are expecting (can you win in a lottery without participating in it?). In case the email subject is more or less something you are waiting for, scrutinize all elements of the questionable letter with caution. A hoax letter will always have mistakes.
• Never use cracked or unknown software. Trojan viruses are often distributed as a part of cracked products, possibly as a “patch” to prevent the license check. Understandably, untrusted programs are difficult to distinguish from trustworthy ones, as 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 programs at all.

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”.

Frequently Asked Questions

🤔 Are the “.[[email protected]].ME” files accessible?

Negative. That is why ransomware is so frustrating. Until you decode the “.[[email protected]].ME” files you will not be able to access them.

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

It’s good if you have fаr-sightedly saved copies of these important files elsewhere. If not, there is still a function of System Restore but it needs a Restore Point to be previously saved. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time.

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

🤔 And what should I do now?

Some of the encrypted data can be located elsewhere.

• If you exchanged your important files via email, you could still download them from your online mailbox.
• You might have shared images or videos with your friends or family members. Just ask them to send those pictures back to you.
• If you have initially downloaded any of your files from the Internet, you can try doing it again.
• Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud storage might have all those files as well.
• Maybe you still have the needed files on your old PC, a portable device, mobile, external storage, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can employ file recovery programs⁵ to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encrypts the copies of your files, deleting the authentic ones. In the video below, you can learn how to use PhotoRec for such a recovery, but remember: you won’t be able to do it before you kill the ransomware itself 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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