What is Explus virus?
Explus appends its specific .explus extension to the title of every encrypted file. For instance, a file named “photo.jpg” will be renamed to “photo.jpg.explus”. Just like the Excel table with the name “table.xlsx” will be renamed to “table.xlsx.explus”, and so on.
In every directory containing the encoded files, a RECOVERY INFORMATION.txt file will be found. It is a ransom money memo. It contains information on the ways of paying the ransom and some other information. The ransom note most probably contains instructions on how to buy the decryption tool from the racketeers. That is how they do it.
| Name | Explus Virus |
| Extension | .explus |
| Ransomware note | RECOVERY INFORMATION.txt |
| Detection1 | MSIL/Spy.Agent.DSV, TrojanSpy:Win32/Delgent, Trojan.Ransom.Magniber |
| Symptoms | Your files (photos, videos, documents) get a .explus extension and you can’t open them. |
| Fix Tool | See If Your System Has Been Affected by Explus virus |
In the screenshot below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Explus looks like. Each filename has the “.explus” extension added to it.
How did my machine catch Explus ransomware?
There are currently three most exploited methods for criminals to have ransomware planted in your system. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer-to-peer file transfer.
If you access your mailbox and see emails that look like familiar notifications from utility services providers, delivery agencies like FedEx, web-access providers, and whatnot, but whose sender is strange to you, beware of opening those letters. They are very likely to have a harmful file attached to them. Therefore, it is even riskier to download any attachments that come with letters like these.
Another thing the hackers might try is a Trojan virus model2. A Trojan is a program that gets into your machine disguised as something legal. For example, you download an installer of some program you need or an update for some service. But what is unboxed turns out to be a harmful agent that encodes your data. As the update file can have any title and any icon, you have to make sure that you can trust the source of the things you’re downloading. The optimal thing is to use the software developers’ official websites.
As for the peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent or eMule, the danger is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Web. You can never guess what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy resources. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is done.
