SURTR Ransomware 🔐 [[email protected]].SURT Removal

The Surtr virus belongs to the ransomware type of malicious agent. A harmful program of such sort encrypts all the data on your PC (images, documents, excel tables, audio files, videos, etc) and appends its own extension to every file, creating the SURTR_README.hta files in every directory which contains the encrypted files.

Surtr virus: what is known so far?

☝️ A scientifically correct denomination for the Surtr is “a ransomware-type malicious agent”.

The renaming will be executed according to the following scheme: .SURT. In the course of encryption, a file entitled, for example, “report.docx” will be altered to “report.docx.[[email protected]].SURT”.

In each folder with the encrypted files, a SURTR_README.hta text document will be found. It is a ransom money memo. Therein you can find information on the ways of paying the ransom and some other information. The ransom note usually contains a description of how to buy the decryption tool from the Surtr developers. You can obtain this decoding tool after contacting [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] through email. That is how they do it.

Surtr Summary:

The SURTR_README.hta document coming in package with the Surtr ransomware states the following:

SurtrRansomware
 
OOPS ALL YOUR IMPORTANT FILES HAVE BEEN ENCRYPTED AND STOLEN !!

Notice : There is only one way to restore your data read the boxes carefully!

Attention :

☢ Do Not change file names.
☢ Do Not try to decrypt using third party softwares , it may cause permanent data loss .
☢ If you do not pay the fee within one month , your important files will be published in our public belog .

☢ Do not pay any money before decrypting the test files.
☢ You can use our 50% discount if you pay the fee within first 15 days of encryption . otherwise the price will be doubled.
☢ In order to warranty you , our team will decrypt 3 of your desired files for free.but you need to pay the specified price for the rest of the operation .
 
How To Decrypt :

☢ Your system is offline . in order to contact us you can email this address  [email protected]  use this ID (0uUO3jsQBIbkZu) for the title of your email .
☢ If you weren't able to contact us within 24 hours please email :  [email protected]  
☢ If you didn't get any respond within 48 hours use this link (Not Available Now).send your ID and your cryptor name (SurtrRansomwareUserName) therefore we can create another way to contact you as soon as possible

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

How did my computer get infected with Surtr ransomware?

There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware injection.

There are currently three most exploited ways for criminals to have the Surtr virus working in your system. These are email spam, Trojan introduction and peer-to-peer networks.

If you access your mailbox and see emails that look like familiar notifications from utility services companies, delivery agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose sender is unknown to you, beware of opening those letters. They are most likely to have a viral file attached to them. Therefore, it is even more dangerous to open any attachments that come with emails like these.

Another thing the hackers might try is a Trojan virus scheme. A Trojan is a program that infiltrates into your computer disguised as something legal. Imagine, you download an installer for some program you want or an update for some program. However, what is unpacked reveals itself a harmful agent that corrupts your data. As the installation file can have any title and any icon, you have to make sure that you can trust the resource of the things you’re downloading. The optimal way is to trust the software developers’ official websites.

As for the peer file transfer protocols like torrents or eMule, the danger 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. So you’d better be using trustworthy websites. Also, it is a good idea to scan the folder containing the downloaded items with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is complete.

How to remove ransomware?

It is important to inform you that besides encrypting your files, the Surtr virus will most likely deploy Vidar Stealer on your machine to seize your credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned spyware can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling cardfile.

How to avert ransomware infiltration?

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

You can defend your computer from its infiltration taking three easy steps:

• Ignore any letters from unknown mailboxes with unknown addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are waiting for (how can you win in a money prize draw without even taking part in it?). If the email subject is likely something you are waiting for, check all elements of the questionable email carefully. A hoax email will surely contain mistakes.
• Never use cracked or unknown software. Trojans are often distributed as an element of cracked products, possibly under the guise of “patch” preventing the license check. Understandably, untrusted programs are very hard to distinguish from trustworthy ones, as trojans may also have the functionality you need. You can try to find information on this program on the anti-malware message boards, but the optimal solution is not to use such software.

FAQ

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

There’s no way to do it, unless the files “.SURT” files are decrypted.

🤔 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 to do if the Surtr malware has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation key.

🤔 What can I do right now?

Some of the encrypted files can be found elsewhere.

• If you sent or received your critical 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 send those images back to you.
• If you have initially got any of your files from the Web, you can try doing it again.
• Your messengers, social networks pages, and cloud storage might have all those files as well.
• Maybe you still have the needed files on your old PC, a notebook, mobile, flash memory, etc.

HINT: You can employ data recovery programs¹ to get your lost data back since ransomware blocks the copies of your files, removing the original ones. In the tutorial below, you can learn how to use PhotoRec for such a recovery, but be advised: you can do it only after you eradicate the ransomware itself with an anti-malware program.

1. Here’s the list of Top 10 Data Recovery Software Of 2023.