Sakura Virus (. Sakura Files) — How to Remove?

What is Sakura virus?

Sakura will append its specific .Sakura extension to every file’s name. For example, a file named “photo.jpg” will be changed to “photo.jpg.Sakura”. Likewise, the Excel sheet named “table.xlsx” will end up as “table.xlsx.Sakura”, and so on.

In every directory containing the encrypted files, a read_it.txt text document will be created. It is a ransom money memo. Therein you can find information about the ways of paying the ransom and some other information. The ransom note usually contains instructions on how to purchase the decryption tool from the ransomware developers. That is how they do it.

In the image below, you can see what a directory with files encrypted by the Sakura looks like. Each filename has the “.Sakura” extension appended to it.

How did Sakura ransomware end up on my PC?

There are currently three most popular ways for hackers to have ransomware planted in your digital environment. These are email spam, Trojan injection and peer-to-peer networks.

If you open your inbox and see letters that look just like notifications from utility services companies, delivery agencies like FedEx, Internet providers, and whatnot, but whose “from” field is unknown to you, beware of opening those emails. They are very likely to have a malicious file enclosed in them. Therefore, it is even riskier to open any attachments that come with letters like these.

Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan virus scheme³. A Trojan is a program that gets into your PC pretending to be something different. For example, you download an installer of some program you want or an update for some service. However, what is unboxed turns out to be a harmful program that corrupts your data. As the installation package can have any name and any icon, you have to make sure that you can trust the source of the files you’re downloading. The optimal way is to use the software companies’ official websites.

As for the peer-to-peer networks like torrent trackers or eMule, the threat is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet. You can never know what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy websites. Also, it is reasonable to scan the directory containing the downloaded objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is complete.