'.alien File Extension' Ransomware

The '.alien File Extension' Ransomware is a file-locking Trojan that can encrypt media, such as documents or images, and keep them from opening. Its attacks may include changing your wallpaper, deleting backups, and accessing local network-available drives, as well. Have backups protected and well-maintained for the sake of your files and use traditional anti-malware solutions for removing the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware.

An Alien's Spotlight is Honing on Your Files

A new arrival to the file-locker Trojan scene is showing some of the usual symptoms and formatting preferences that malware experts generally connect to Ransomware-as-a-Service attacks. However, while the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware's ancestry is questionable, it's already attacking victims, and could be creating security breaches beyond the verifiable blocking of your files. Its campaign is infecting Windows users in the United States as of late January of this year.

The AES-256 is the favorite algorithm for threat actors trying to encrypt their victims' files in return for money. Although the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware's encryption means of preference isn't identifiable in current samples, it does attack the typical formats of media that are at risk from file-locker Trojans of nearly all families: documents and Microsoft Office-related files, especially. The appending of the extension in its name is the only additional, non-ransom note symptom that malware experts are confirming.

The '.alien File Extension' Ransomware uses text messages for delivering its ransoming instructions, and, possibly mistakenly, also adds another 'alien' extension into the middle of the note's filename. Malware experts discourage paying ransoms, regardless of the means the threat actor demands, since paying criminals for decryption can, frequently, be futile, and refunds are never possible, for obvious reasons. The users without other options may double-check their Windows Restore Points for available backups although many file-locker Trojans all but identical to the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware will, pointedly, remove them.

Sending the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware Off Out of Orbit

Besides the simple fact that its campaign is active, malware analysts can find little information on the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware's choices of targets or overall strategizing for infecting victims. Windows PCs are the only systems at risk, so far, but this trait is one that the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware shares with many families, such as Hidden Tear, EDA2, the Scarab Ransomware, the Globe Ransomware and the Globe Imposter Ransomware. E-mail attachments, torrents, exploit kits abusing advertising networks or corrupted domains, and brute-force login cracking all are techniques in active use.

Without decryption solutions available, the users can either contact a proven cyber-security expert for an in-depth analysis of the Trojan's cryptography or restore from a backup. Backups that the users save to other devices with additional protection are more secure than local ones significantly. Only dedicated anti-malware programs should uninstall the '.alien File Extension' Ransomware, which may be compromising your PC along with backdoor Trojans, rootkits, or other, higher-level threats than itself.

The '.alien File Extension' Ransomware involves an unknown threat actor and a still-mysterious campaign. What little is knowable about it, however, shows that it's a danger that one should thwart before it gets to your files.