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

The Rival virus falls within the ransomware type of infection. A harmful program of this type encrypts all the data on your PC (photos, documents, excel sheets, music, videos, etc) and appends its extra extension to every file, creating the FILES ENCRYPTED.txt files in each directory containing encrypted files.

What is known about the Rival virus?

The renaming will be done by this pattern: EMAIL=[contact_email]ID=[victim_id].rival. In the process of encryption, a file entitled, for example, “report.docx” will be renamed to “report.docx.EMAIL=[[email protected]]ID=[A7BF40638C0B7184].rival”.

In every folder containing the encoded files, a FILES ENCRYPTED.txt text document will be found. It is a ransom money note. Therein you can find information about the ways of contacting the racketeers and some other information. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the tamperers. You can get this decryptor after contacting [email protected] by email. That is pretty much the scheme of the malefaction.

Rival Summary:

The FILES ENCRYPTED.txt file accompanying the Rival malware states the following:

ATTENTION!
At the moment, your system is not protected.
We can fix itand restore files.
To get started, send a file to decrypt trial.
You can trust us after opening the test file.
To restore the system write to both : [email protected] and [email protected]
Your Decryption ID: -

In the screenshot below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Rival looks like. Each filename has the “.rival” extension added to it.

How did my computer get infected with Rival ransomware?

There are many possible ways of ransomware infiltration.

Nowadays, there are three most exploited ways for evil-doers to have ransomware acting in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer networks.

• Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan file model. A Trojan is an object that gets into your computer pretending to be something legal. For instance, you download an installer for some program you want or an update for some service. However, what is unpacked reveals itself a harmful program that encrypts your data. Since the installation wizard can have any name and any icon, you’d better be sure that you can trust the resource of the stuff 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 resources. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded files with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.

How to remove ransomware?

It is crucial to inform you that besides encrypting your data, the Rival virus will most likely install Vidar Stealer on your machine to seize your credentials to different accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned program can extract your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

How to avoid ransomware injection?

Rival ransomware doesn’t have a superpower, so as any similar malware.

You can armour your PC from its injection within three easy steps:

• Never open any letters from unknown mailers with strange addresses, or with content that has likely no connection to something you are expecting (can you win in a money prize draw without even taking part in it?). In case the email subject is more or less something you are waiting for, check all elements of the questionable letter carefully. A hoax email will surely contain mistakes.
• Avoid using cracked or unknown software. Trojan viruses are often spreaded as an element of cracked products, most likely as a “patch” which prevents the license check. But dubious programs are difficult to tell from reliable software, because trojans sometimes have the functionality you seek. You can try to find information on this program on the anti-malware forums, but the optimal way is not to use such software.

FAQ

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

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

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

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 to do if the Rival ransomware has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation code.

🤔 What could help the situation right now?

Some of the encrypted files can be located elsewhere.

• If you sent or received your critical 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 give those pictures back to you.
• If you have initially downloaded any of your files from the Internet, you can try to do it again.
• Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud drives might have all those files as well.
• It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a laptop, mobile, memory stick, etc.

USEFUL TIP: You can use file recovery programs¹ to get your lost data back since ransomware arrests the copies of your files, deleting the original ones. In the video below, you can learn how to use PhotoRec for such a restoration, but be advised: you won’t be able to do it before you eradicate the ransomware itself with an antivirus program.

1. Here are Top 10 Data Recovery Software Of 2023.