The Warlock dark army virus belongs to the ransomware type of malicious agent. Harmful software of this type encrypts all user’s data on the PC (photos, documents, excel sheets, music, videos, etc) and appends its extra extension to every file, leaving the read_it.txt files in every directory with the encrypted files.
What is Warlock dark army virus?
☝️ A strictly correct description for the Warlock dark army would be “a ransomware infection”.
Warlock dark army will add its own .warlockdarkarmyofficials extension to every file’s name. For instance, an image entitled “photo.jpg” will be renamed to “photo.jpg.warlockdarkarmyofficials”. In the same manner, the Excel table named “table.xlsx” will become “table.xlsx.warlockdarkarmyofficials”, and so on.
In every directory that contains the encrypted files, a read_it.txt file will appear. It is a ransom money memo. It contains information on the ways of paying the ransom and some other remarks. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to purchase the decryption tool from the racketeers. You can obtain this tool after contacting @WARLOCK_MAK (Telegram) through email. That is how they do it.
Warlock dark army abstract:
| Name | Warlock dark army Virus |
| Extension | .warlockdarkarmyofficials |
| Ransomware note | read_it.txt |
| Contact | @WARLOCK_MAK (Telegram) |
| Detection | Win32:Agent-APKD [Trj], Mal/Ransom-GE, Win32/TrojanDownloader.Dagozill.B |
| Symptoms | Your files (photos, videos, documents) have a .warlockdarkarmyofficials extension and you can’t open them. |
| Fix Tool | See If Your System Has Been Affected by Warlock dark army virus |
The read_it.txt document coming in package with the Warlock dark army malware provides the following discouraging information:
All of your files have been encrypted by WARLOCK DARK ARMY Your computer was infected with a ransomware virus. Your files have been encrypted and you won\'t be able to decrypt them without our help.What can I do to get my files back?You can buy our special decryption software, this software will allow you to recover all of your data and remove the ransomware from your computer.The price for the software is $100. Payment can be made in Bitcoin only. How do I pay, where do I get Bitcoin? Purchasing Bitcoin varies from country to country, you are best advised to do a quick google search yourself to find out how to buy Bitcoin. Many of our customers have reported these sites to be fast and reliable: Coinmama - hxxps://www.coinmama.com Bitpanda - hxxps://www.bitpanda.com Payment informationAmount: 0.1473766 BTC Bitcoin Address: Contact me on Telegram for getting bitcoin addres: @WARLOCK_MAK
In the picture below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Warlock dark army looks like. Each filename has the “.warlockdarkarmyofficials” extension added to it.
An example of encrypted .warlockdarkarmyofficials files.
How did my computer get infected with Warlock dark army ransomware?
There are plenty of possible ways of ransomware infiltration.
Nowadays, there are three most popular ways for tamperers to have the Warlock dark army virus planted in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan infiltration and peer-to-peer file transfer.
If you open your inbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services companies, delivery agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose “from” field is strange to you, be wary of opening those letters. They are most likely to have a malware item attached to them. So it is even riskier to open any attachments that come with emails like these.
Another thing the hackers might try is a Trojan file model1. A Trojan is an object that infiltrates into your computer disguised as something different. Imagine, you download an installer for some program you want or an update for some program. However, what is unboxed turns out to be a harmful program that compromises your data. As the update wizard can have any name and any icon, you have to make sure that you can trust the resource of the things you’re downloading. The best thing is to trust the software companies’ official websites.
As for the peer file transfer protocols like torrents or eMule, the threat is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet. You can never know 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 objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is complete.
How to remove the Warlock dark army virus?
It is crucial to inform you that besides encrypting your data, the Warlock dark army virus will probably install the Azorult Spyware on your computer to seize your credentials to various accounts (including cryptocurrency wallets). The mentioned program can derive your credentials from your browser’s auto-filling data.
Sometimes racketeers would decode few of your files to prove that they do have the decryption program. As Warlock dark army virus is a relatively new ransomware, security software engineers have not yet found a way to undo its work. However, the anti-ransomware tools are frequently updated, so the effective countermeasure may soon arrive.
Understandably, if the tamperers do the job of encrypting someone’s essential data, the hopeless person will probably fulfill their demands. Nevertheless, paying to racketeers does not necessarily mean that you’re getting your files back. It is still dangerous. After obtaining the ransom, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption key to the victim. There were reports of criminals simply disappearing after getting the money without even writing back.
The best countermeasure to ransomware is to have a system restore point or the copies of your essential files in the cloud drive or at least on an external disk. Obviously, that might be insufficient. The most important thing could be that one you were working on when it all started. But at least it is something. It is also reasonable to scan your PC for viruses with the antivirus program after the OS restoration.
There are other ransomware products, besides Warlock dark army, that work similarly. Examples of those are Tury, Nuis, Adlg, and some others. The two major differences between them and the Warlock dark army are the ransom amount and the encoding method. The rest is almost identical: documents become blocked, their extensions altered, ransom notes are found in every folder containing encoded files.
Some fortunate users were able to decode the arrested files with the help of the free tools provided by anti-ransomware developers. Sometimes the hackers mistakenly send the decoding key to the wronged in the ransom note. Such an extraordinary fail allows the injured part to restore the files. But of course, one should never expect such a chance. Make no mistake, ransomware is a tamperers’ tool to lay their hands on the money of their victims.
How to avert ransomware infection?
Warlock dark army ransomware has no superpower, so as any similar malware.
You can protect yourself from ransomware injection taking three easy steps:
- Never open any letters from unknown senders with strange addresses, or with content that has nothing to do with something you are expecting (how can you win in a lottery without participating in it?). In case the email subject is likely something you are expecting, check all elements of the questionable letter with caution. A hoax email will always contain a mistake.
- Avoid using cracked or untrusted programs. Trojans are often shared as a part of cracked products, possibly as a “patch” to prevent the license check. Understandably, untrusted programs are very hard to distinguish from reliable software, as trojans may also have the functionality you need. 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.
- And finally, to be sure about the safety of the objects you downloaded, check them with GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This program will be a perfect defense for your system.
Reasons why I would recommend GridinSoft2
There is no better way to recognize, remove and prevent ransomware than to use an anti-malware software from GridinSoft3.
Download Removal Tool.
You can download GridinSoft Anti-Malware by clicking the button below:
Run the setup file.
When setup file has finished downloading, double-click on the setup-antimalware-fix.exe file to install GridinSoft Anti-Malware on your computer.
An User Account Control asking you about to allow GridinSoft Anti-Malware to make changes to your device. So, you should click “Yes” to continue with the installation.
Press “Install” button.
Once installed, Anti-Malware will automatically run.
Wait for the Anti-Malware scan to complete.
GridinSoft Anti-Malware will automatically start scanning your PC for Warlock dark army infections and other malicious programs. This process can take a 20-30 minutes, so I suggest you periodically check on the status of the scan process.
Click on “Clean Now”.
When the scan has finished, you will see the list of infections that GridinSoft Anti-Malware has detected. To remove them click on the “Clean Now” button in right corner.
Frequently Asked Questions
🤔 How can I open “.warlockdarkarmyofficials” files?Are the “.warlockdarkarmyofficials” files accessible?
Unfortunately, no. You need to decipher the “.warlockdarkarmyofficials” files first. Then you will be able to open them.
🤔 The encrypted files are very important to me. How can I decrypt them quickly?
If the “.warlockdarkarmyofficials” files contain some really important information, then you probably have them backed up. 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.
🤔 If GridinSoft deletes the Warlock dark army malware, will it also delete my files that were encrypted?
Of course not. Your encrypted files are no threat to your PC.
GridinSoft Anti-Malware will delete active viruses from your PC. The malware that has infected your device is most likely still functional and launching checks every so often to encode any new files you might create on your PC after the infection. As it has been said above, the Warlock dark army virus does not come alone. It installs backdoors and keyloggers that can steal your account credentials and provide malefactors with easy access to your system in the future.
🤔 What should I do if the Warlock dark army malware has blocked my PC and I can’t get the activation code.
In such an unfortunate situation, you need to have a flash memory card with a pre-installed Trojan Killer. Use Safe Mode to perform the procedure. You see, the ransomware runs automatically as the system boots and encodes any new files created or imported into your computer. To suppress this process – use Safe Mode, which allows only the vital programs to run upon system start. Consider reading our manual on booting Windows in Safe Mode.
🤔 What could help the situation right now?
Many of the encoded files might still be within your reach
- If you sent or received your important files via email, you could still download them from your online mail server.
- You may have shared images 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 Web, you can try downloading them again.
- Your messengers, social media pages, and cloud drives might have all those files too.
- It might be that you still have the needed files on your old computer, a portable device, mobile, external storage, etc.
USEFUL TIP: You can employ file recovery programs4 to retrieve your lost information since ransomware encodes the copies of your files, removing the authentic ones. In the tutorial below, you can see how to recover your files with PhotoRec, but be advised: you can do it only after you remove 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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Brendan SmithHow to Remove WARLOCK DARK ARMY Ransomware & Recover PC
Name: WARLOCK DARK ARMY Virus
Description: WARLOCK DARK ARMY Virus is a ransomware-type infections. This virus encrypts important personal files (video, photos, documents). The encrypted files can be tracked by a specific .warlockdarkarmyofficials extension. So, you can't use them at all.
Operating System: Windows
Application Category: Virus
User Review
( votes)References
- You can read more on Trojans, their use and types in the Trojan-dedicated section of GridinSoft official website.
- GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review from HowToFix site: https://howtofix.guide/gridinsoft-anti-malware/
- More information about GridinSoft products: https://gridinsoft.com/comparison
- Here are Top 10 Data Recovery Software Of 2023.
I have got a new varient of warlock dark army ransomware.
It’s .warlockfuc*er.
Will make a guide like this on how to?