How to remove Poteston Ransomware and decrypt .poteston files

What is Poteston Ransomware

Poteston is classified as a ransomware infection that runs encryption of databases, photos, documents, and other valuable data. The whole encryption process can be easily spotted by users looking at new extensions assigned to files. This virus involves the .poteston extension to rename the stored data. To illustrate, a file named 1.pdf will change its look to 1.pdf.poteston as a result of encryption. As soon as these changes are seen, victims will no longer be able to access the data. To restore it, users are given instructions inside of the readme.txt note:

Within the note, victims are greeted with bad news – all data we mentioned above has been encrypted. To redeem it back, victims are instructed to contact cyber criminals using their e-mail address (recovery_Potes@firemail.de). After establishing contact with them, you will be supposedly given the necessary details to perform a money transfer. Before doing so, you are also offered to send one of the blocked files for free decryption. This is a trick used by many extortionists to elevate the trust of victims. In addition to that, Poteston developers also inform against renaming encrypted data as you can potentially damage its configuration. Unfortunately, trusting cyber criminals with regard to paying the ransom is risky. Many cases point to cyber criminals being inclined to fool their victims despite receiving the ransom. Unless you have backup copies of blocked data that are stored on a separate device, you will not be able to decrypt your data for free. The encryption run by Poteston is actually strong and hard to break using third-party tools. Despite this, it is important to evaluate the risks of paying the ransom, if necessary. Whatever the case, Poteston Ransomware should be deleted as soon as possible to prevent further encryption and risk to be spread onto neighboring networks. To do this and learn more about decryption, follow our guidelines below.

How Poteston Ransomware infected your computer

Traditionally, malware is known to be distributed via malicious spam letters, unprotected RDP configuration, fake software updates, unreliable downloads, trojans, backdoors, keyloggers, and other channels like that. When it comes to ransomware infections specifically, most users receive them through malicious attachments hidden within spam letters. The bundled files are usually of .docx, .pdf, .exe, or .js extensions. Sadly, most users do not bear the danger of opening them. Some make take it as a regular newsletter received from a legitimate campaign. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as cybercriminals tend to send malicious programs under the names of popular firms. This helps them prevent users from sniffing anything suspicious inside of such letters. After downloading and opening such files, people are more likely to become the victims of ransomware or Trojan developers. This is why it is so important to keep your eyes sharp for content received for no reason. If you have not subscribed to anything that could have a correlation with what you received, more likely there is a risk of malware presence. Always keep it in mind and do not fall into this sort of a trap. Along with the removal, we are going to introduce a couple of tips to stay protected against such threats in the future – right below.

1. Download Poteston Ransomware Removal Tool
2. Get decryption tool for .poteston files
3. Recover encrypted files with Stellar Data Recovery Professional
4. Restore encrypted files with Windows Previous Versions
5. Restore files with Shadow Explorer
6. How to protect from threats like Poteston Ransomware

Poteston Ransomware files:


{randomname}.exe


Poteston Ransomware registry keys:

no information

How to decrypt and restore .poteston files

Use automated decryptors

Download Kaspersky RakhniDecryptor

Use following tool from Kaspersky called Rakhni Decryptor, that can decrypt .poteston files. Download it here:

Download RakhniDecryptor

There is no purpose to pay the ransom because there is no guarantee you will receive the key, but you will put your bank credentials at risk.

Dr.Web Rescue Pack

Famous antivirus vendor Dr. Web provides free decryption service for the owners of its products: Dr.Web Security Space or Dr.Web Enterprise Security Suite. Other users can ask for help in the decryption of .poteston files by uploading samples to Dr. Web Ransomware Decryption Service. Analyzing of files will be performed free of charge and if files are decryptable, all you need to do is purchase a 2-year license of Dr.Web Security Space worth $120 or less. Otherwise, you don’t have to pay.

If you are infected with Poteston Ransomware and removed it from your computer you can try to decrypt your files. Antivirus vendors and individuals create free decryptors for some crypto-lockers. To attempt to decrypt them manually you can do the following:

Use Stellar Data Recovery Professional to restore .poteston files

1. Download Stellar Data Recovery Professional.
2. Click Recover Data button.
3. Select type of files you want to restore and click Next button.
4. Choose location where you would like to restore files from and click Scan button.
5. Preview found files, choose ones you will restore and click Recover.

Download Stellar Data Recovery Professional

Using Windows Previous Versions option:

1. Right-click on infected file and choose Properties.
2. Select Previous Versions tab.
3. Choose particular version of the file and click Copy.
4. To restore the selected file and replace the existing one, click on the Restore button.
5. In case there is no items in the list choose alternative method.

Using Shadow Explorer:

1. Download Shadow Explorer program.
2. Run it and you will see screen listing of all the drives and the dates that shadow copy was created.
3. Select the drive and date that you want to restore from.
4. Right-click on a folder name and select Export.
5. In case there are no other dates in the list, choose alternative method.

If you are using Dropbox:

1. Login to the DropBox website and go to the folder that contains encrypted files.
2. Right-click on the encrypted file and select Previous Versions.
3. Select the version of the file you wish to restore and click on the Restore button.

How to protect computer from viruses, like Poteston Ransomware, in future

1. Get special anti-ransomware software

Use ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware

Famous antivirus brand ZoneAlarm by Check Point released a comprehensive tool, that will help you with active anti-ransomware protection, as an additional shield to your current protection. The tool provides Zero-Day protection against ransomware and allows you to recover files. ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware is compatible with all other antiviruses, firewalls, and security software except ZoneAlarm Extreme (already shipped with ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware) or Check Point Endpoint products. The killer features of this application are: automatic file recovery, overwrite protection that instantly and automatically recovers any encrypted files, file protection that detects and blocks even unknown encryptors.

Download ZoneAlarm Anti-Ransomware

2. Back up your files

As an additional way to save your files, we recommend online backup. Local storages, such as hard drives, SSDs, flash drives, or remote network storages can be instantly infected by the virus once plugged in or connected to. Poteston Ransomware uses some techniques to exploit this. One of the best services and programs for easy automatic online backup is iDrive. It has the most profitable terms and a simple interface. You can read more about iDrive cloud backup and storage here.

3. Do not open spam e-mails and protect your mailbox

Malicious attachments to spam or phishing e-mails are the most popular method of ransomware distribution. Using spam filters and creating anti-spam rules is good practice. One of the world leaders in anti-spam protection is MailWasher Pro. It works with various desktop applications and provides a very high level of anti-spam protection.

Download MailWasher Pro