SATANA Ransomware

The SATANA Ransomware is a Trojan that uses encryption attacks to block and ransom your files. When defending against such attacks, malware experts can recommend standard anti-encryption protocols such as keeping recent backups and scanning e-mail attachments that serve as the most popular installation method for these threats. Besides any concerns about data preservation, you also should attend to your PC's safety by removing the SATANA Ransomware with any trusted anti-malware software.

Looking at the Devil in Your Machine

For many PC owners, the first, instinctive response to an infection is to restart their computers. However, some forms of threats can make that reflex self-destructive by using it to complete an installation or other portions of their payloads. The SATANA Ransomware is one Trojan that shows just how wrong a system restart can go, by not only encrypting the contents of your computer but by compromising the Windows loading system and blocking the desktop potentially.

Similarities in these attacks have given cause to speculation that the SATANA Ransomware forms a basis on a similar foundation of code as the Mischa Ransomware and the Petya Ransomware, although malware experts can't corroborate such claims. With or without such relationships, the SATANA Ransomware's payload includes a pre-Windows loading mechanism that overwrites the original MBR. Restarting your computer, therefore, also restarts the SATANA Ransomware, by default.

A reboot also triggers the SATANA Ransomware's pop-up message that demands a ransom for the safe return of your content. Like most file encryption Trojans, the SATANA Ransomware is guilty of exaggerating the extent of its encryption, which it claims has affected all files. Instead, malware experts believe this Trojan only to target a portion of the MFT, which, nonetheless, is sufficiently damaging to stop your PC from reading the rest of the file system. The SATANA Ransomware also makes inaccurate claims of being a 'virus' despite the Trojan's having no self-reproduction features for placing it in that narrow classification.

Restoring the Sanctity of a Boot-Hijacked Computer

The SATANA Ransomware operates in the often-misunderstood realm of threatening software capable of hijacking components integral to the core fabric of your operating system. However, PC users with the foresight to keep backups of all their important information just as easily overcome its initial encryption threats. The most straightforward protection from the SATANA Ransomware always is to place yourself in a position where rushing to pay ransoms for after-the-fact recovery never is necessary.

Some of its attacks are even more invasive than one would assume of a threatening file encoder, but the SATANA Ransomware is just as reliant as most Trojans on a third-party delivery method. Similar threats like the Petya Ransomware may make use of disguised e-mail spam, which requires some level of poor security behavior on the recipient's behalf. Verifying the identity of a message's sender or scanning a potentially harmful file before its execution can stop these threat campaigns in their distribution stages.

Cases of threats compromising essential loading processes are not beyond the scope of traditional anti-malware solutions. However, malware experts do encourage using alternate loading techniques, such as recovery USB devices. Such simple strategies will give your anti-malware tools a suitable position from which to remove the SATANA Ransomware and restore your OS.