Skull Ransomware Removal Guide

Skull Ransomware is yet another ransomware-type computer infection set to infect your PC by stealth and encrypt your files and demand that you pay a substantial ransom payment to decrypt them. Instead of complying with the cyber criminals’ demands, you ought to remove this ransomware from your PC completely because you cannot trust them to decrypt your files once you have paid. Unfortunately, we have had no word about a free decryption tool, so you cannot get your files back free of charge yet. Still, such a program might be released to the general public in the future.

Let us discuss the most likely ways this ransomware might be distributed because there is no concrete information on this particular aspect. Like most ransomware, Skull Ransomware might be disseminated using email spam. Its developers might have set up a dedicated email server to spam the inboxes of random people in an effort to infect their PCs. The emails can pose as receipt, invoices, tax return forms, and so on. This ransomware’s main executable or dropper file can be attached to the email and disguised you open the file without downloading it first, then the file will be temporarily downloaded to %TEMP%. However, this executable can remain there and run each time you boot up your PC. Nevertheless, this ransomware can also be distributed on infected websites that have exploit kits on them. These exploit kits are set to exploit your browser’s security vulnerabilities and download this ransomware on your PC secretly. Also, Skull Ransomware might come bundled with pirated software or their keygens or cracks. In short, this ransomware can be distributed using many methods, so you have to protect your PC so that malware like it would not infect your PC.

If your computer becomes infected with Skull Ransomware, then it will encrypt your files immediately with a strong encryption algorithm. We believe that this ransomware will target many file types that include photos, images, videos, audios, documents, data bases, file archives, and so on. Once the encryption is complete, this ransomware will drop a ransom note named How_To_Decrypt_Your_Files.html that will take you to http://adartmark.com/blog_howto.html. The note states that you have to pay 400 USD in Bitcoins to decrypt your files. You have to send the payment to one of three Bitcoin Wallets that include 1DQ8pzAJ4Y3MFDPR8JZNykYtxGec8VmgoR, 14QcURskVd6FnZF4gqxzsujJTuW3KPjZmG, and 1ERWHumZ9cBkrpzLaP5WbA4H3bZfZwWyVz. Then, you have to send the transaction number, your Bitcoin wallet address you send the ransom payment from and your computer’s hostname to Skull.and.bones2017@protonmail.com. Even though there seems to be a polished system exchanging money for a decryption key, we do not recommend you pay the ransom because your files just might not be worth the money.

In closing, Skull Ransomware is one malicious application dedicated to encrypting your most valued files to make you pay a ransom to get them back. However, you should not pay the ransom because there is no guarantee that you will get your files back. Therefore, we recommend that you remove it from your PC using our guide or get an anti-malware application such as SpyHunter to eradicate it for you.

Manual removal Guide

1. Press Windows+E keys.
2. Type the following file paths in the address box of the File Explorer.
   • %USERPROFILE%\Downloads
   • %USERPROFILE%\Desktop
   • %TEMP%
3. Press Enter.
4. Locate the randomly-named executable.
5. Right-click it and click Delete.
6. Right-click the Recycle Bin and click Empty Recycle Bin.