Mind Ransomware Removal Guide

Mind Ransomware is one of those infections that are supposedly released for “educational” purposes. They usually say that they infect users because the users need to understand how dangerous and suffocating it might feel when such a program takes over their computer. Normally, “educational” ransomware does not ask for a ransom to be paid, but you can never know how Mind Ransomware will be developed further. Therefore, before the matters fall out of hand, you should scramble to remove this infection from your system. It should be possible to decrypt your files with the key left by the application itself.

It is not clear how Mind Ransomware gets distributed around, but since the ransomware is “educational,” it is very likely that the infection was installed manually, either through an unsafe remote desktop connection or perhaps through some website that you accidentally opened when you were surfing unfamiliar spaces of the Internet. Either way, the point is that, more often than not, it is possible to avoid getting infected with ransomware, if users are really careful about the content they encounter online. If you are about to open an unfamiliar website, you should be very sure that it is not in any way related to malware distribution channels.

Of course, that is sometimes almost impossible to know, and the likes of Mind Ransomware enter target systems. The good thing is that the program encrypts only the files you keep on your desktop. And all the files get the “.mind” extension added to their filenames. Thus, the infection will not block you from accessing all of your files. However, it can do a lot of other things that can be quite annoying. In fact, Mind Ransomware can basically block you from operating your computer because it really wants you to pay attention to it.

Here is what the program is going to do: First, it will kill the Explorer process and you will not be able to access your files or your Start menu. From here, you might want to log out of your account, but the ransomware takes care of that, too. It displays screen lock functionality and removes “Shut Down” from the Start menu. You cannot even change your password or switch users because the ransomware disables those functions, too. So while Mind Ransomware does not encrypt most of your files, the program does everything to disrupt your usual computer routine and prevent you from removing it.

On the other hand, the program drops the decryption key on your desktop. It is in the key.txt file and you can use to restore your files (if you keep any on your desktop). After that, you must remove Mind Ransomware from your system because this infection also functions as a keylogger Trojan, and so it can collect and steal sensitive personal information. Therefore, it is not just about the crippled system, it is also your personal data you have to protect from malicious exploitation.

The manual removal process for Mind Ransomware might be rather tedious because of all the system utilities you have to restore. However, if you follow the instructions closely, you will get some of the most important things back quite soon. And after that, leave the rest to a powerful antispyware tool.

How to Delete Mind Ransomware

1. Press Win+R and the Run prompt will open.
2. Type into the Open box these paths one by one:
   %USERPROFILE%\Desktop
   %USERPROFILE%\Downloads
   %TEMP%
3. Click OK to open every folder separately.
4. Remove suspicious files from these directories.
5. Press Win+R again and type gpedit.msc. Press OK.
6. Go to Local Group Policy Editor.
7. Navigate to Configuration/Administrative Templates/System.
8. On the right, disable Prevent access to the command prompt.
9. Then double-clickthe Prevent Access to registry editing tools option.
10. Choose Disable in the pop-up and press OK.
11. Restart your PC.
12. Run a full system scan with SpyHunter.