OFFERPooe
Pooe is a ransomware threat that cybercriminals use to generate quick money for themselves via extortion. The way Pooe attacks a computer is it scans it for frequently used files, applies advanced encryption to them and then demands a ransom for the decryption key.
The Pooe virus will leave a _readme.txt file with instructions
Computers are places where all types of valuable digital information can be kept. Whether that is some important documentation, correspondence, favorite music, pictures of special moments, projects, archives or other types of digital data, we certainly don’t want to lose access to it. Unfortunately, malicious hackers have found a way to make some good and quick money by limiting access to this type of information. They have created Pooe (.Zqqw, Miis) — a cryptovirus that encrypts user files and blackmails you to pay a ransom for their decryption. This online threat has recently become a lucrative “business” for many cyber criminals. Nevertheless, on this page, you can find information on how to remove the infection. The removal guide which you can find below will take you through all the steps, but you can also use the professional Pooe removal tool attached to it if you need any specialized help.
The Pooe virus
The Pooe virus is malicious software that uses a powerful encryption algorithm to lock files on an infected computer and prevent victims from accessing them. The cyber criminals behind the Pooe virus use various tactics to make the victims pay for their files.
For instance, they display scary ransom notifications on the screen of the infected computer and threaten that if no payment is made within a given deadline, the encrypted files will remain inaccessible forever. The crooks usually ask for a ransom that is payable in Bitcoins, which is an untraceable cryptocurrency. In return, they promise to send a specially generated decryption key that can be used to decrypt the inaccessible files. The ransom amount needed for this key can be between a few hundred bucks to thousands of dollars. That’s why many victims are eager to try other solutions to retrieve their information and remove the Ransomware that has infected their computer.
The .Pooe file decryption
The .Pooe file decryption is a process that is used to reverse the encryption that the ransomware has applied. Users who want to activate the .Pooe file decryption have to obtain a decryption key from the hackers.
The .Pooe Ransomware will encrypt your files
Unfortunately, there is no assurance that you will recover your files by paying the ransom. In fact, the cyber criminals don’t really care about your encrypted information and whether you will get it back as long as they receive the money. Once you transfer the required amount, the crooks may simply vanish and leave you with nothing. Unfortunately, when more web users pay the ransom, these threats become more common as they become a favorite tool for unscrupulous people to make money. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you take the time to research and explore other alternatives that can help you restore any files and remove Pooe. The removal guide below and the professional removal tool attached to it can be a good starting point.
SUMMARY:| Name | Pooe |
| Type | Ransomware |
| Data Recovery Tool | Not Available |
| Detection Tool | Some threats reinstall themselves if you don't delete their core files. We recommend downloading SpyHunter to remove harmful programs for you. This may save you hours and ensure you don't harm your system by deleting the wrong files. |
Remove Pooe Ransomware
To remove the Pooe virus, you must carefully search your system for rogue programs and uninstall them and then stop the virus processes and restore the settings of your system that have been altered by the malware.
- Check the list of programs in Programs and Features for items related to the virus and uninstall what you may find them.
- Stop any harmful processes that may still be running in the background of the system.
- Check system settings such as the Registry, the Hosts file, or the Startup items list and revoke any changes made to them by the virus.
- To remove the Pooe virus, the final thing you must do is access the AppData, LocalAppData, ProgramData, WinDir, and Temp folders and delete from them any recently added files related to the malware.
More details about each of those steps can be found in the next lines, so we recommend reading on if you need further explanation.
Expanded Removal Guide
You can see all programs installed on the computer by going to Start Menu > Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. In there, look for anything installed right before Pooe locked up your files – if you see a program that looks suspicious and has been installed around that time, click on it, then click the Uninstall option, and proceed with the steps from the unisntallation wizard.
If you get asked if you’d like to keep anything from the program on your computer, do not accept that offer and proceed with the installation, making sure that everything gets deleted.
WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Launch the Task Manager by pressing together Ctrl, Shift, and Esc and look at the listed items in the Processes tab. If the Ransomware still has processes running in the background of your PC, those processes are likely to be rather resource-intensive, so, to make finding any potentially malicious processes easier, sort the list by the CPU or memory consumption of the processes to see the ones with the highest resource consumption at the top.
You must look for processes with high CPU/RAM memory consumption that have questionable names that seem unrelated to the programs on your computer. If you encounter a process you think could be from the Pooe Ransomware, we suggest that you first look for more information about it on the Internet. It’s highly likely that if the process is malicious, other users have talked about it on the Internet.
If this ends up being the case, then go ahead and right-click on the process, then open the File Location where its files are stored, and test the files in that folder for malware using this next free malware scanner:
If there are files in the Location Folder that are detected as threats, the first thing you should do is immediately shut down the malicious process (right-click it and then click the End Process) option. Next, you have to delete the files from the folder of the process – even the ones that didn’t get detected as threats.
When trying to delete the files, you may find out that some of them cannot be removed at the moment. That’s okay, if it happens, just continue with the guide. Once you finish the other steps, you should be able to delete what files remain from the rogue process, so go back to the file location folder, delete what files are left in it, and then delete the folder itself.
Note: If there are any online posts from reputed researchers that state the process in your Task Manager is malicious, quit that process and get rid of its file location folder even if the files in the latter don’t get flagged as malware.
To prevent Pooe from starting any of its process again and interrupting you during the next steps, we suggest booting your PC into Safe Mode. Use the linked guide article if you are not sure how to do that.
Open the Windows Run box by pressing Winkey and R and then copy-paste this line in it: notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts.
Press the Enter key or click on OK to open the specified file and if you are asked what program you want to open it with, select the Notepad app.
When the Hosts text file appears, check it for any strange IPs written at its bottom. In general, anything that’s written below “Localhost” in the Hosts file indicates that a third-party program has modified the file. However, in order to be sure that such modifications have been introduced by the virus, we will first have to take a look at what’s written there. Because of this, you should copy whatever text/IP addresses are below “Localhost” in the Hosts file, send them to us through the comments section, and we will soon reply to you, telling you if you must delete anything from the file.
After you take care of the Hosts file, open Run again, type msconfig, press Enter, and see what items are listed in the Startup section in the System Configuration window that opens.
Anything listed there that you are not familiar with, or that may be related to the virus, should have the tick removed from its checkbox. After you’ve made sure that all questionable entries have been unchecked, click on OK.
Important!: Since, in this step, you will have to delete rogue items from the Registry of your PC, you must be very careful and only remove what you are sure is from the virus so that you don’t end up damaging the system. Feel free to ask us in the comments about any suspicious items that you aren’t sure must be deleted.
You can search for the Registry Editor in the Start Menu by typing regedit. Click on the regedit/exe icon and then select Yes when/if Windows requests your Admin permission.
Once the Registry Editor appears, press Ctrl and F to open its search box and type in it the name of the Ransomware virus. Then click Find Next and delete the first item that gets found. After that, search again to see if there are more related items. Keep doing this until you’ve managed to delete everything in the Registry that’s related to Pooe.
Next, find these next locations in the Registry by manually navigating through the folders in the left panel
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Internet Explorer > Main
In each location, search for odd entries with long and random names. Any item that looks like this: “3029t2hg093ru5904u3kf9j90u454rik4t“, for instance, should probably be deleted.
The last thing you must do is delete the most recent files from the following five folders. By most recent, we mean anything created on the date the virus infected you and after that. To open each folder, copy its name from below alongside the “%” characters, place it in the Start Menu and the folder should show up in the search results. Once you get to Temp, simply delete all the files that are contained in it.
Lastly, there are several folders that you must visit and clean from potentially rogue items. The folders are:
- %AppData%
- %LocalAppData%
- %ProgramData%
- %WinDir%
- %Temp%
Use Professional Removal Software If trying to remove the Ransomware manually didn’t work, it may be time to use an automatic malware-removal tool to take care of the situation. Note that a stealthy Trojan may also be in your system, helping the Pooe Ransomware stay active in spite of your attempts to eliminate the latter. This is one more reason why you may need the help of a specialized program to clean your PC. Our recommendation in such a situation is to try out the removal tool linked throughout this page – it has been tested many times against these kinds of threats and should be able to clean your system in no time.
How to Decrypt Pooe files
To decrypt your files, you must first delete the Pooe virus, but note that eliminating the threat won’t directly bring your data back. There are several ways you may be able to restore your data. One of them is obviously to pay the ransom, but this is the least recommended one as it holds a high risk of losing a lot of money without getting any of your files back. For that reason, we believe it is much better to try some of the available alternatives. We’ve compiled the ones we consider the most effective in our How to Decrypt Ransomware guide that we advise you to visit and complete. Before you go there, however, make sure that Pooe is truly gone from your PC. If there are any files left on the computer that you suspect may be malicious, remember to use the free anti-malware scanner tool available on our site to check those files for harmful code.
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