Matilan Virus (. Matilan Files) — How to Remove Rasnomware?

What is known about the Matilanvirus?

Matilan adds its own .MATILAN extension to the title of each encrypted file. For instance, a file entitled “photo.jpg” will be turned into “photo.jpg.MATILAN”. Likewise, the Excel table with the name “table.xlsx” will be renamed to “table.xlsx.MATILAN”, and so on.

In each directory that contains the encrypted files, a RESTORE_FILES_INFO.txt text document will appear. It is a ransom money note. It contains information on the ways of paying the ransom and some other remarks. The ransom note most probably contains a description of how to purchase the decryption tool from the ransomware developers. That is it.

In the screenshot below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Matilan looks like. Each filename has the “.MATILAN” extension added to it.

How did my computer get infected with Matilan ransomware?

Nowadays, there are three most popular ways for evil-doers to have the Matilan virus working in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer networks.

If you access your mailbox and see letters that look like familiar notifications from utility services providers, postal agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose addresser is strange to you, beware of opening those letters. They are most likely to have a viral file enclosed in them. Thus it is even more dangerous to download any attachments that come with letters like these.

Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan horse model². A Trojan is a program that gets into your computer pretending to be something different. For example, you download an installer for some program you need or an update for some service. But what is unboxed reveals itself a harmful program that encrypts your data. As the installation wizard can have any name and any icon, you have to make sure that you can trust the resource of the stuff you’re downloading. The optimal thing is to trust the software companies’ official websites.

As for the peer networks like torrents or eMule, the danger is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Web. You can never know what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy websites. Also, it is a good idea to scan the directory containing the downloaded files with the antivirus as soon as the downloading is complete.