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This page aims to help you remove DarkGate Malware. Our removal instructions work for every version of Windows.
There are many different kinds of cyber threats out there that seek to infiltrate your PC and cause all sorts of harm to it. However, not many of them are as nasty and as dangerous as the ones that belong to the infamous malware category of Trojan Horses. As you likely already know, Trojans are some of the worst and most dangerous virus programs that you could encounter. They are versatile cyber-crime tools with stealth abilities that allow them to stay hidden and undetected once they have managed to infect the user’s system. Here, we will focus on DarkGate – this is a Trojan Horse virus that has been recently released and as it has already attacked a considerable number of computers, we have decided to give our readers some more information about this particular malware threat within this write-up. Read the next lines carefully and take note of the the tips and pieces of advice we are about to present you with. Remember – being well informed about a given type of malware is one of the best ways to keep your machine protected against it. However, we understand that many of you might have actually come here in search for help against an infection with DarkGate that has already occurred on your PCs. If you are one of those unfortunate users who have had the bad luck of getting their machine infiltrated by the insidious malware virus, we might have something for you that would hopefully enable you to deal with the nasty Trojan. At the bottom of this article, you can find some detailed instructions that will show you how to manually find any Trojan-related data on your PC and delete it in order to liberate your computer from the malware’s effects. Within the removal guide, we have also added a suggested software tool that you can use to scan your machine and automatically remove the threat if you don’t feel like using the manual method.
Remove DarkGate Malware
Some of the steps will likely require you to exit the page. Bookmark it for later reference.
Reboot in Safe Mode (use this guide if you don’t know how to do it).
WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!
More information about SpyHunter and steps to uninstall. Please review SpyHunter's EULA, Threat Assessment Criteria, and Privacy Policy.
We get asked this a lot, so we are putting it here: Removing parasite manually may take hours and damage your system in the process. We recommend downloading SpyHunter to see if it can detect parasite's files for you. 
Click to Download Spyhunter's Anti-Malware Scanner.
Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC at the same time and go to the Processes Tab. Try to determine which processes are dangerous.
Right click on each of them and select Open File Location. Then scan the files with our free online virus scanner:
This scanner is free and will always remain free for our website's users. You can find its full-page version at: https://howtoremove.guide/online-virus-scanner/
Scan Results
| Virus Scanner | Result |
|---|---|
| ClamAV | |
| AVG AV | |
| Maldet |
After you open their folder, end the processes that are infected, then delete their folders.
Note: If you are sure something is part of the infection – delete it, even if the scanner doesn’t flag it. No anti-virus program can detect all infections.
Hold together the Start Key and R. Type appwiz.cpl –> OK.
You are now in the Control Panel. Look for suspicious entries. Uninstall it/them. If you see a screen like this when you click Uninstall, choose NO:
Type msconfig in the search field and hit enter. A window will pop-up:
Startup —> Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer or otherwise look suspicious.
- Remember this step – if you have reason to believe a bigger threat (like ransomware) is on your PC, check everything here.
Hold the Start Key and R – copy + paste the following and click OK:
notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts
A new file will open. If you are hacked, there will be a bunch of other IPs connected to you at the bottom. Look at the image below:
If there are suspicious IPs below “Localhost” – write to us in the comments.
To remove parasite on your own, you may have to meddle with system files and registries. If you were to do this, you need to be extremely careful, because you may damage your system.
If you want to avoid the risk, we recommend downloading SpyHunter - a professional malware removal tool - to see whether it will find malicious programs on your PC.
Download SpyHunter More information about SpyHunter and steps to uninstall. Please review SpyHunter's EULA, Threat Assessment Criteria, and Privacy Policy
Type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter.
Once inside, press CTRL and F together and type the virus’s Name. Right click and delete any entries you find with a similar name. If they don’t show up this way, go manually to these directories and delete/uninstall them:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—–Random Directory. It could be any one of them – ask us if you can’t discern which ones are malicious.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—-Windows—CurrentVersion—Run– Random
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—Internet Explorer—-Main—- Random
In our opinion, the best course of action would be to use a combination of both of the methods as this will have the highest chance for success in removing the infection. Nevertheless, regardless of what option you choose to go for, make sure to eliminate the malware as soon as possible before it has managed to cause any serious damage to your system and/or to your virtual privacy and safety.
General Trojan Horse traits
The majority of Trojan Horse virus programs share a number of similar traits and it is very important that you are well aware of what those traits are so that you could effectively disarm any future Trojan Horse threats in their infancy. The first thing that ought to be pointed out here with regards to Trojan Horse infections is that they are known for oftentimes occurring with little to no symptoms. In most cases, the hackers who develop such viruses make use of some kind of disguise for the malware program. They might distribute it via malvertising, through pirated software, by sending it to their victims using spam messages and through many other similar sneaky methods. The bottom line is that you need to be really vigilant and observant so that you could avoid running into any online content that might be a carrier of such a malware threat. Next, bear in mind that if a Trojan like DarkGate makes its way to your computer and manages to infect it, it’s likely that there won’t be any signs during the time the infection lasts. Sometimes increased RAM, CPU or GPU use as well as random and frequent errors, freezes and crashes might give away the virus but such symptoms are situational and might not be present in your case. This leads us to our next point – get yourself an antivirus tool that is strong and reliable. Do not compromise with your machine’s security as in a lot of cases your only semi-reliable way of spotting a threat like DarkGate would indeed be a good security program.
Potential damage
Trojans, as mentioned above, can be extremely versatile and could be used in different ways depending on what the hacker’s goal really is. Such a virus could be employed for destructive tasks like system corruption, data deletion, formatting of the HDD but also for tasks such as espionage, data theft or backdooring of other viruses (Ransomware, Spyware, Worms, etc.). Oftentimes the malware might also take over your machine and force it to conduct tasks without you being able to do anything about it. Such tasks could be participation in DDoS attacks, cryptomining for the hacker’s profit, spam message distribution and so on. As you can see, Trojans can harm you in all kinds of way and if you do not make sure to eliminate such a threat from your PC you should prepare for many unforeseen consequences.
SUMMARY:
| Name | DarkGate |
| Type | Trojan |
| Danger Level | High (Trojans are often used as a backdoor for Ransomware) |
| Symptoms | High RAM, CPU and/or GPU use, random errors, sudden crashes, freezes and slow-downs and other similar system behavior irregularities. |
| Distribution Method | Spam, unsafe ads, pirated programs, illegal torrents, shady sites, etc. |
| Detection Tool | parasite may reinstall itself multiple times if you don't delete its core files. We recommend downloading SpyHunter to scan for malicious programs. This may save you hours and cut down your time to about 15 minutes. Download SpyHunter Anti-Malware More information on SpyHunter, steps to uninstall, EULA, Threat Assessment Criteria, and Privacy Policy. If SpyHunter detects a malware, you will have to purchase a license to remove it. |
If the guide doesn’t help, download the anti-virus program we recommended or try our free online virus scanner. Also, you can always ask us in the comments for help!
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