Alfa Ransomware

The Alfa Ransomware is a Trojan that encrypts the files on your PC and uses ransom demands for extracting money for a decryption service after the fact. Currently estimated as being made by the same threat actors responsible for the Cerber Ransomware, the Alfa Ransomware includes similar features, and, like that older Trojan, has no freeware-based decryptor option. As with most cases of threatening file encryption, malware experts recommend keeping remotely stored backups to mitigate an attack and using your specialized anti-malware products for removing the Alfa Ransomware.

The Newest Alpha Trojan for Scrambling the Contents of Your PC

The creation of new Trojans isn't always about a need for new payloads or threat capabilities, but, just as often, by the need to evade previous security flags that could lead to the threat's prompt identification and quarantining. Con artists with experience in threat deployment often create similar revisions or variants of old threats, such as the new Alfa Ransomware, which shows much of the behavior of the same team's past product, the Cerber Ransomware. During casual PC use, identifying the Alfa Ransomware infections will occur only after its payload triggers and causes potentially permanent data loss ordinarily.

The Alfa Ransomware sets itself to run automatically and hides its primary components in a sub-directory of the user's AppData profile folder. Once active, the Alfa Ransomware scans for files of specified extensions, such as WAV, TXT, CDR, DOC, XLS, PSD, MP4 and AVI, along with over a dozen other types. Besides changing each name to a series of randomized characters with the '.bin' extension, the Alfa Ransomware also encrypts the internal data. Afterward, other software can no longer interpret the file's contents.

Malware analysts also took notice of the Alfa Ransomware removing SVC backups created by Windows automatically, which would give PC users without more in-depth backup strategies a path towards re-creating their data.

Kicking an Alpha Trojan Down to the Bottom of the Threat Ladder

From the viewpoint of its perpetrators, the Alfa Ransomware's encryption attack is only a necessary evil for forcing victims into a ransom-paying scheme. The Alfa Ransomware provides HTML and text-based instructions for how to access its TOR-based website and even offers a 'sample' decryption service potentially. Simultaneously, however, the Alfa Ransomware threatens any victims with sharp increases in fees for every seventy-two hours that passes without any payments.

While the Alfa Ransomware does take precautions against any local backup information, remote backups still are safe against its localized encryption attacks. Storing backups on a removable device or a password-protected server can give you a free means of recovering from threatening file encryptors that lack any public decryption tools. While containing an Alfa Ransomware infection, malware experts recommend avoiding the unnecessary introduction of new content to the PC particularly, which also could be encrypted by the Trojan.

The Alfa Ransomware is a system-persistent threat. If the booting process contains no additional security solutions specific to this issue, the Trojan will launch itself whenever Windows starts. Boot your PC through an emergency USB device or use Safe Mode to block unneeded programs from running. Then let your anti-malware tools scan for and remove the Alfa Ransomware.

Even though most security solutions should be capable of uninstalling the Alfa Ransomware easily, the effects of its attacks are not so easily reversible. Protect your PC with common-sense safety steps and cautious behavior to keep your files from turning into another ransom story.