What is Blackheart Ransomware?
When a program is called Blackheart Ransomware, it is probably clear that you cannot expect anything good from it. As you can probably tell, this program is part of the ongoing ransomware epidemic, and it comes forth to profit from your demise. In a sense, the damage of this infection might be smaller if it were to affect individual user’s computers. However, we have seen that over the last year, ransomware usually targets small business. And that is the main reason computer security experts maintain that everyone should keep a backup of their data. Because removing Blackheart Ransomware would not get your files back.
Where does Blackheart Ransomware come from?
Since the program is not particularly well-spread, we do not know the exact details of its distribution cycle. Nevertheless, we can make certain assumptions that are common to almost all ransomware infections. First, most of the ransomware programs are distributed via spam or phishing emails. Individual users and company employees are tricked into opening fake email messages, and after that, they download the installer files that launch the infection once they are opened.
Various researches suggest that only a small number of people fall for this trick. In fact, the proportion is less than 10%, but this small number is enough for ransomware infections to thrive. In other words, users need to learn how to recognize potentially harmful email messages that could be part of the ransomware distribution network. As far as companies and businesses are concerned, it is important that they would invest in their employ education because once one computer on the network is infected with a ransomware program, the entire network system could be disrupted immediately, and that would cost a lot more than just one cyber security lesson.
What does Blackheart Ransomware do?
So now that we have established that such programs usually come with spam emails, it is time to look at what this infection does. To tell you the truth, Blackheart Ransomware functions just like any other ransomware infection out there. It is vicious and merciless, and unless you have copies of your files saved someplace else, the chances are that you will not be able to retrieve your data once it gets encrypted.
When the infection is launched, Blackheart Ransomware runs a full system scan looking for the file types it can encrypt. Our research says that this program encrypts most of the file formats. You will see which files were encrypted by the program because it appends a new extension to all the affected files. For example, if a flower.jpg file gets encryption, its filename will look like flower.jpg.pay2me after the encryption. The extension is self-explanatory: this infection expects you to pay the ransom fee to retrieve your files.
There are also other signs that you were infected by Blackheart Ransomware. Upon launch, the infection will open a new window that will contain the ransom instructions on a black background, and it will sport the name ‘Black Heart.’ The instructions will give you your ‘personal key,’ and it will tell you that you should not restart or shutdown your PC because if you do that, your personal files will remain encrypted for good. It says that you need to pay $200 in bitcoin, and once the payment is complete, you need to send the personal key given in the pop-up window to vahidkhaz123@gmail.com. Here we would like to point out that the chances of getting your files back by paying the ransom are really slim. Not to mention that these criminals make use of the Gmail server for their email, and it is very likely that Google will close that inbox soon enough, to avoid further exploitation. Therefore, your best bet right now would be removing Blackheart Ransomware manually and then looking for ways to get your files back from various places where you have saved them earlier.
How do I remove Blackheart Ransomware?
To delete this infection, you need to first kill the process that displays the pop-up window on your screen. It is not hard to do, and you can follow the instructions below to accomplish that. Afterwards, you will have to remove the file that launched the infection, and you will probably find it in your Downloads folder, or anywhere else where you save all of your downloaded files. Finally, you should consider acquiring a licensed security application to run a full system scan one more time, and please be more careful about opening unfamiliar email attachments in the future!
Manual Blackheart Ransomware Removal
- Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc and the Task Manager will open.
- Open the Processes tab and kill the Blackheart process.
- Close Task Manager and go to your Downloads folder.
- Delete all the recently downloaded files.
- Scan your PC with SpyHunter.
100% FREE spyware scan and
tested removal of Blackheart Ransomware*
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