Tech Anyone Dealt With Zepto Virus?..

[EddyTheDog]

A friend has it and I am getting the usual BS from Google - Any advice?..

Thanks

[AdultKing]

Originally Posted by EddyTheDog

A friend has it and I am getting the usual BS from Google - Any advice?..

Thanks

Yes, it's another relatively new strain of ransomware.

There's a few variants in the wild. One just trashes files and adds the .zepto extension and demands a ransom

Another seems to actually encrypt files but there's no current decryption method available.

My mainstream IT company gets several of these a week. I would recommend backing up the system and re-installing Windows from scratch. Keep the backup of the compromised data in case security researchers manage to find a way to decrypt the files as they have done for earlier types of ransomware.

In most cases where you can use tools to decrypt files you need a reasonable sized unencrypted sample file from the system and the very same file as encrypted to generate a decryption key.

My advice is don't pay the ransom.

[EddyTheDog]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

Yes, it's another relatively new strain of ransomware.

There's a few variants in the wild. One just trashes files and adds the .zepto extension and demands a ransom

Another seems to actually encrypt files but there's no current decryption method available.

My mainstream IT company gets several of these a week. I would recommend backing up the system and re-installing Windows from scratch. Keep the backup of the compromised data in case security researchers manage to find a way to decrypt the files as they have done for earlier types of ransomware.

In most cases where you can use tools to decrypt files you need a reasonable sized unencrypted sample file from the system and the very same file as encrypted to generate a decryption key.

My advice is don't pay the ransom.

Damn - That sounds bad - I just forwarded this to him - Not much more I can do...

Thanks AK.....