Anatel ransomware / virus (Tutorial)

What is Anatel ransomware virus?

How much damage can Anatel virus inflict?

Users, residing in Portugal or other Roman-speaking countries, should stay alerted because Anatel virus might target their computers. Portuguese hackers decided to make the appearance after by launching their virtual threat. Now the virus market has been preoccupied with Cerber, Zepto, and other major viruses. According to some peculiarities, this virus attempts to borrow some features from the previously rampaged Locky threat. In this article, we will provide you essential information about the virus and Anatel removal methods. One of them is to use anti-spyware application, for example, FortectIntego.

Virus researchers have concluded that the virus mainly targets users residing in Portugal because the ransom message is provided in the Portuguese language. Moreover, hackers did not come up with the original title but took the name of Brazilian telecommunications agency. Comparing this threat to other ransomware, it should not be underestimated. Anatel malware employs RSA and AES algorithm to finish encrypting your files. Since a unique private key is required for the decoding process, there might be few alternative ways to recover them. Some data recovery programs might help retrieve at least a portion of important information. This ransomware does not target the wide range of files, but it usually attempts to encode the most usable. In other words, the files with the following extensions are likely to be encoded:

.asp, .aspx, .avi, .bat, .bk, .bmp, .css, .csv, .divx, .doc, .docx, .html, .index, .jpeg, .jpg, .lnk, .mdb, .mkv, .mov, .mp3, .mp4, .mpeg, .odt, .ogg, .pdf, .php, .png, .ppt, .pptx, .psd, .rar, .sln, .sql, .txt, .wav, .wma, .wmv, .xls, .xlsx, .xml, .zip.

After it connects to a malicious domain mpf1.16mb(dot)com and sends information about the victim’s computers, Anatel ransomware opens up LEIA.txt message which states of its misdeed. Now all the locked files contain .lok extension. The content of this notification is rather modest so it is likely that cyber criminals opted for the usual method – they ask victims to purchase Bitcoin and then transfer necessary payment receipt to the indicated email address. Though the virus mainly roams in Portugal’s area, do not exclude the probability that it might appear on your computer as well. Thus, more information is expected to be revealed if the virus decides to cross borders.

Other highly destructive peculiarity of Anatel is that it modifies certain registry keys. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce and Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce. Unfortunately, if you decide to remove Anatel manually, you may need to search for its files across several system folders. Unfortunately, this activity might be tiresome. There is a probability that you overlook some essential files as well.

How is this virus distributed?

The hackers employ already proven technique which turned out to be highly profitable. The malware is likely to infect computers via spam emails. In this manner, the name for this virus might not have been chosen by accident. In the past, there were some file-encrypting threats which disguised themselves under scams which came as fake emails sent from the tax institution. Regarding the fact that the hackers used the title of a telecommunication company, beware of emails which might come from this company. You can differentiate between a fake and a real email by looking for typing or spelling mistakes. Moreover, fake deceptive emails might not contain the credentials of an official sender. Keep in mind that the virus might be distributed via exploit kits. In this case, proper security is crucial.

What is the way to remove Anatel effectively?

We do not recommend you manually delete the virus unless you specialize in IT field. Such activity might only turn out futile. Thus, install an anti-spyware application, FortectIntego or Malwarebytes. It will take care of the virus immediately. However, some viruses have a tendency to disable security applications. It is necessary to perform system scan using both, an anti-virus and malware removal applications. If you encountered any problems and you cannot perform Anatel removal due to disabled programs or OS malfunctioning, use the guidelines provided below to recover the access to your computer. After the program eliminates the threat, reboot the computer and scan it again.