Do you know what Ordinal Ransomware is?
Ordinal Ransomware can slither onto your computer without your knowledge and cause nightmarish destruction by encrypting your personal files and many more in order to extort a ransom fee from you for the decryption tool and key. The problem is that it is always risky to comply with the demands since you have no guarantee whatsoever that these cyber criminals will really deliver as promised. In fact, contacting them might even result in infecting your computer with yet another malicious threat. Unfortunately, our researchers have not found a free file recovery tool on the web yet but this does not mean that there will be none either. There are lots of malware hunters who work hard to find solutions for victims of ransomware to be able to recover their files, but this is not always possible. But even if such a decryptor appears on the web, we do not advise you to download it and use it unless you are an advanced computer user. If not, you had better find a friend who is or take you computer to an IT expert. We do not recommend that you pay the extra high ransom fee but instead, we suggest that you remove Ordinal Ransomware as soon as possible.
This dangerous threat can easily infiltrate your system with your help. Yes, with your help. There is really no magic most of the time about how such an infection can show up on your computer. This time it can be as simple as you opening a spam e-mail that has a malicious attachment. First, you may think that you would never open a spam e-mail, and, second, you may think that you could easily spot a malicious attached file. Well, we beg to differ. In fact, this spam can be so authentic-looking and playing at your curiosity, a basic human characteristic, that it is really hard to resist temptation to open it.
Ordinal Ransomware screenshot
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And, if you open this mail, chances are you will also be intrigued to view the attachment that is supposed to hold the key to the whole mystery of an unpaid invoice, wrong credit card details given, or a parcel delivered to the wrong address, which are the most common subjects such a spam may refer to. Now, do you think you could resist this mail and simply delete it without checking out what this might be? The truth is, the worst you can do is open this mail and view its attachment. If you do so, even if you delete Ordinal Ransomware, you will not be able to save your files from the horror of encryption. Remember that you cannot possibly catch such a ransomware in the act and stop it. You need to be extra careful with your mails because spam filters are not infallible, they do make mistakes and can even misplace or misjudge legitimate mails. This is why users tend to double check the spam folder and end up opening such a spam as well.
When you activate this malicious threat, it creates a Run registry entry ("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run::Main") so that it can launch automatically every time you log in to your Windows account. This could obviously mean that your newly created files may be encrypted until you finally delete Ordinal Ransomware. Before encrypting your files, this infection searches for the following strings in active processes: wireshark, dnspy, ilspy, fiddler, and fiddler4. If any of these are found running on your system, the ransomware simply crashes without damaging your files. Of course, this does not mean that you do not need to remove Ordinal Ransomware right away.
This ransomware infection targets the following folders in your "%USERPROFILE%" directory: Desktop, Links, Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, OneDrive, Saved Games, Favorites, Searches, and Videos. Since this threat can encrypt hundreds of file extensions, it can cause serious damage on your system. It uses the usual AES-256 encryption algorithm to encode your files and appends a ".Ordinal" to your file names. After it has finished its dirty business on your computer, it displays its ransom note window, which cannot be closed or moved unless you end the malicious process via Task Manager.
You have to pay 1 Bitcoin, which is a whopping 7,233 US dollars' worth at the time of writing, if you want to be able to recover your files. After you send your money to the given Bitcoin address, you are supposed to send an e-mail with your ID, which is indicated in this ransom note window, to "TEST@protonmail.com" e-mail address. Once again, we do not recommend that you contact these criminals because it may end even worse for you. You need to consider a few things before making that decision because we are not talking about 10 USD this time. But even then we would not advise you to pay. All in all, we believe that it is vital that you remove Ordinal Ransomware from your computer right away.
Please use our instructions below as a reference if you want to do this yourself. However, you always have another choice, i.e., to employ a trustworthy anti-malware program like SpyHunter, which could automatically take care of this ugly threat and efficiently protect your PC against future attacks as well. This, however, does not mean that you do not need to keep all your programs updated regularly. In fact, this is essential if you want to defend your system against cyber attacks exploiting outdated software bugs.
Ordinal Ransomware removal from Windows
- Open the Task Manager by tapping Ctrl+Shift+Esc at once.
- Select the malicious process and click End task.
- Close the Task Manager.
- Tap Win+R and type regedit in the box. Hit Enter.
- Open the "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run::Main" registry value name (PoE) to find out where its value data is pointing. Remember (or copy) this location.
- Then, delete this Run key.
- Close the registry editor.
- Tap Win+E.
- Find the malicious .exe file and bin it.
- Check your download directories for any other suspicious files you have downloaded lately and delete them all.
- Empty your Recycle Bin and restart your computer.
In non-techie terms:
Ordinal Ransomware means a severe hit to your system and to your files as well since this malicious program can encrypt hundreds of file extensions in a short time using the AES-256 algorithm. It is essential that you take this attack seriously because this ransomware program can start up automatically with your Windows and possible encrypt your new files as well. In other words, the longer you keep this dangerous threat on your PC, the more damage it can cause. Although you can buy the decryption key and tool, this time it is a horrific amount (1 BTC), which is around 7,233 USD. We do not think that an average private user would have this kind of capital to spend on recovering some old pictures and documents so it is also possible that this ransomware is meant to target bigger companies. Our researchers say that this malware infection may not be finished yet so this could be a test run; however, it is already devastating. We highly recommend that you remove Ordinal Ransomware as soon as possible and protect your system with a professional anti-malware program, too.