Remove Karen ransomware

About Karen ransomware

Karen ransomware will lock your files, since that is the main purpose of ransomware. It is a serious infection that could permanently prevent you from accessing your files. It is quite easy to infect your computer, which only adds to why it’s so dangerous. If you have recently opened a weird email attachment, pressed on a suspicious advertisement or downloaded an ‘update’ promoted on some shady web page, that’s how you likely picked up the infection. And once it’s opened, it will start its file encoding process, and when the process is complete, you’ll be asked to buy a decryptor, which in theory ought to recover your files. The amount of money requested varies from ransomware to ransomware, some demand $1000 or more, some might settle with $100. Even if a small sum is demanded of you, we do not advise complying. There’s nothing stopping criminals from just taking your money, providing nothing in return. You would not be the only person to be left with encrypted data after payment. Backup would be a much better investment, since you wouldn’t be risking losing your files if the situation were to reoccur. From USBs to cloud storage, there are plenty of backup options out there, you simply have to select one. For those who did back up data before the malware infiltrated, simply terminate Karen ransomware and then proceed to restore files from where you’re keeping them. These kinds of contaminations are hiding everywhere, so you need to be ready. If you want your computer to be infection-free, it’s essential to learn about malware and how to avoid them.

Download Removal Toolto remove Karen ransomware

How does data encoding malware spread

Typically, data encoding malicious program is acquired when you open a corrupted email, press on an infected advertisement or use suspicious platforms as download sources. More sophisticated methods can be used as well, however.

Since one of the ways you could have obtained the ransomware is through email attachments, try and recall if you have recently obtained something strange from an email. Crooks spreading ransomware attach an infected file to an email, send it to hundreds of people, and once the file is opened, the system is infected. Those emails could look to be important, usually containing topics such as money, which is why users may open them without considering the danger of doing so. Usage of basic greetings (Dear Customer/Member), strong pressure to open the file added, and many grammatical errors are what you ought to look out for when dealing with emails from unknown senders with attached files. To clarify, if someone important would send you an attachment, they would use your name, not common greetings, and you wouldn’t have to look for the email in spam. Amazon, PayPal and other known company names are oftentimes used as people know of them, thus are more likely to open the emails. Pressing on adverts hosted on questionable pages and using dangerous websites as download sources might also result in an infection. Some advertisements may be harboring malware, so it is best if you stop pressing on them when on questionable reputation pages. And stick to official download sources as much as possible, because otherwise you are jeopardizing your device. Keep in mind that you should never acquire software, updates, or anything really, from strange sources, such as advertisements. If an application needed to update itself, it would not notify you through browser, it would either update without your intervention, or alert you via the program itself.

What happened to your files?

Due to data encoding malicious programs’s ability to permanently lock you out of your files, it’s classified to be one of the most harmful malicious programs infections. And it takes minutes to have your data encoded. Once your files have been encrypted, you’ll see that they have a file extension. The reason why your files may be impossible to decrypt for free is because strong encoding algorithms could be used for the encoding process, and may be impossible to break them. A note with the ransom will then appear on your screen, or will be found in folders that have encoded files, and it should explain everything, or at least attempt to. The creators/distributors of the ransomware will offer you a decryption program, which you evidently have to pay for, and that is not what we recommend. What is stopping crooks from simply taking may just take your money without giving you a decryptor. The ransom money would also likely be financing future data encoding malicious software or other malicious software activities. According to reports, ransomware made $1 billion in 2016, and such large sums of money will just attract more people who want to steal from others. Consider investing the demanded money into reliable backup instead. In case of a similar situation again, you could just ignore it and not worry about likely file loss. Simply pay no mind to the requests and terminate Karen ransomware. You can dodge these types of threats, if you know how they spread, so try to familiarize with its spread methods, at least the basics.

Ways to remove Karen ransomware

If the ransomware still inhabits your system, if you want to eliminate it, you’ll need to obtain malicious program removal software. You could accidentally end up damaging your system if you try to manually remove Karen ransomware yourself, so we don’t suggest proceeding by yourself. It would be wiser to use valid elimination software because you would not be endangering your device. There shouldn’t be any issues with the process, as those types of tools are designed to delete Karen ransomware and other similar infections. If you come across some kind of problem, or aren’t sure about where to begin, scroll down for guidelines. Sadly, those utilities aren’t capable of decrypting your files, they’ll just erase the infection. However, if the ransomware is decryptable, malware researchers might release a free decryptor.

Download Removal Toolto remove Karen ransomware

Learn how to remove Karen ransomware from your computer

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

Step 1. Remove Karen ransomware using Safe Mode with Networking.

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

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 Karen ransomware.

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 Karen ransomware 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.