How to unlock files – Pennywise ransomware virus

What is ransomware

Pennywise ransomware virus will encrypt your files, as it’s ransomware. It’s not a light threat as it could leave your files permanently encoded. Because of this, and the fact that getting infected is rather easy, file encrypting malware is considered to be a highly harmful infection. If your system is infected, a spam email attachment, an infected ad or a fake download is to blame. After data is successfully encoded, it will ask you to pay a ransom for a decryptor. How much is requested of you depends on the ransomware, some request thousands of dollars, some for less than $100. Think carefully before you agree to pay, no matter how little money you are asked for. File recovery is not necessarily guaranteed, even after paying, considering there’s nothing stopping crooks from simply taking your money. You certainly wouldn’t be the only person to get nothing. This could easily occur again, so instead of paying, think about investing into backup. From USBs to cloud storage, you have plenty of options, you just need to pick the correct one. You can recover data from backup if you had it available prior to infection, after you erase Pennywise ransomware virus. This isn’t likely to be the last time malware will infect your computer, so you ought to prepare. If you wish to stay safe, you have to familiarize yourself with likely contaminations and how to shield your computer from them.

Download Removal Toolto remove Pennywise ransomware virus

How does file encrypting malware spread

Even though you could find exceptions, most ransomware use basic methods of distribution, such as spam email, corrupted advertisements and downloads. That does not mean more skilled criminals won’t use methods that need more skill.

Since one of the ways you could get an infection is via email attachments, try to recall if you have recently downloaded something weird from an email. Once you open the corrupted attachment, the ransomware will be able to start the encryption process. Those emails may appear urgent, often including money-related info, which is why people would open them without considering the danger of doing so. In addition to grammatical mistakes, if the sender, who ought to definitely know your name, uses greetings such as Dear User/Customer/Member and strongly pressures you to open the file attached, you have to be cautious. If the sender was a company of whom you are a client of, they would have automatically inserted your name into the email, instead of a general greeting. You might encounter company names like Amazon or PayPal used in those emails, as familiar names would make people trust the email more. Or maybe you engaged with the wrong advert when browsing suspicious pages, or downloaded something from a questionable source. Be very cautious about which adverts you interact with, especially when on dubious websites. And if you have to download something, only rely on legitimate web pages. Keep in mind that you should never download software, updates, or anything really, from pop-up or any other types of ads. Applications commonly update themselves, but if manual update was necessary, you would get an alert through the program, not the browser.

What happened to your files?

Malware researchers regularly caution about the dangers of file encrypting malware, basically because infection would lead to permanent data loss. File encryption does not take long, a data encoding malicious software has a list of target files and locates all of them quite quickly. All files that have been encoded will have a file extension added to them. While not necessarily seen in all cases, some ransomware do use strong encryption algorithms on your files, which makes it hard to recover files without having to pay. When all target files have been encrypted, a ransom note will be dropped, and it ought to explain how you should proceed. The note will offer you a decryption tool, for a price, of course, but our advice would be to ignore the demands. What’s there to stop crooks from simply taking may just take your money without helping you decrypt data. The ransom money would also likely be financing future data encoding malicious software activities. The easy money is constantly luring crooks to the business, which reportedly made $1 billion in 2016. We recommend you instead invest in a backup option, which would always be there in case you lost your original files. And you wouldn’t be putting your files in danger if this type of situation reoccurred. If you aren’t going to comply with the requests, proceed to uninstall Pennywise ransomware virus if it is still on your device. If you become familiar with how these threats spread, you should be able to avoid them in the future.

Ways to eliminate Pennywise ransomware virus

If the ransomware is still present on your system, you have to obtain anti-malware utility to terminate it. If you’re reading this, chances are, you aren’t the most knowledgeable when it comes to computers, which means you may damage your system if you try to terminate Pennywise ransomware virus yourself. It would be wiser to use professional elimination software which wouldn’t be endangering your system. Malware removal tools are developed to remove Pennywise ransomware virus and similar threats, so problems should not occur. You will find instructions, if you are not sure about how to proceed. In case it was not clear, anti-malware will only be able to get rid of the infection, it cannot aid with file recovery. It should be said, however, that in some cases, malware specialists develop free decryptors, if the ransomware can be decrypted.

Download Removal Toolto remove Pennywise ransomware virus

Learn how to remove Pennywise ransomware virus from your computer

• Step 1. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus using Safe Mode with Networking.
• Step 2. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus using System Restore
• Step 3. Recover your data

Step 1. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus using Safe Mode with Networking.

• a) Step 1. Access Safe Mode with Networking.
• b) Step 2. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus.

a) Step 1. Access Safe Mode with Networking.

For Windows 7/Vista/XP

1. Start → Shutdown → Restart → OK.
2. Press and keep pressing F8 until Advanced Boot Options appears.
3. Choose Safe Mode with Networking

For Windows 8/10 users

1. Press the power button that appears at the Windows login screen. Press and hold Shift. Click Restart.
2. Troubleshoot → Advanced options → Startup Settings → Restart.
3. Choose Enable Safe Mode with Networking.

b) Step 2. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus.

You will now need to open your browser and download some kind of anti-malware software. Choose a trustworthy one, install it and have it scan your computer for malicious threats. When the ransomware is found, remove it. If, for some reason, you can't access Safe Mode with Networking, go with another option.

Step 2. Remove Pennywise ransomware virus using System Restore

• a) Step 1. Access Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
• b) Step 2. Restore files and settings.

a) Step 1. Access Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

For Windows 7/Vista/XP

1. Start → Shutdown → Restart → OK.
2. Press and keep pressing F8 until Advanced Boot Options appears.
3. Select Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

For Windows 8/10 users

1. Press the power button that appears at the Windows login screen. Press and hold Shift. Click Restart.
2. Troubleshoot → Advanced options → Startup Settings → Restart.
3. Choose Enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

b) Step 2. Restore files and settings.

1. You will need to type in cd restore in the window that appears. Press Enter.
2. Type in rstrui.exe and again, press Enter.
3. A window will pop-up and you should press Next. Choose a restore point and press Next again.
4. Press Yes.

While this should have taken care of the ransomware, you might want to download anti-malware just to be sure no other threats are lurking.  

Step 3. Recover your data

• a) Using Data Recovery Pro to recover encrypted files.
• b) Restore files through Windows Previous Versions
• c) Using Shadow Explorer to recover files

While backup is essential, there is still quite a few users who do not have it. If you are one of them, you can try the below provided methods and you just might be able to recover files.

a) Using Data Recovery Pro to recover encrypted files.

1. Download Data Recovery Pro, preferably from a trustworthy website.
2. Scan your device for recoverable files.
3. Recover them.

b) Restore files through Windows Previous Versions

If you had System Restore enabled, you can recover files through Windows Previous Versions.

1. Find a file you want to recover.
2. Right-click on it.
3. Select Properties and then Previous versions.
4. Pick the version of the file you want to recover and press Restore.

c) Using Shadow Explorer to recover files

If you are lucky, the ransomware did not delete your shadow copies. They are made by your system automatically for when system crashes.

1. Go to the official website (shadowexplorer.com) and acquire the Shadow Explorer application.
2. Set up and open it.
3. Press on the drop down menu and pick the disk you want.
4. If folders are recoverable, they will appear there. Press on the folder and then Export.

* SpyHunter scanner, published on this site, is intended to be used only as a detection tool. More info on SpyHunter. To use the removal functionality, you will need to purchase the full version of SpyHunter. If you wish to uninstall SpyHunter, click here.