For those not familiar with the term ransomware trojans basically infect your computer and in the process encrypt your files, change extensions and several types of nasty tricks to them. When done the trojan will typically pop up a dialog demanding cash to return your system to normal.

There is a new one according to a report from Symantec called Ramvicrype Trojan that well encrypt your files and then when you are search for a fix you find yourself directed to a website that will sell you some software to fix the problem. The search will yield the expected results because of the unique file extension the malware uses on the encrypted files.

Using the file extension – *.vicrypt it takes short order to find the solution but Symantec has published a specific utility program to help any victims hit by this trojan.

Symantec virus researcher Shunichi Imano said in a blog entry that Ramvicrype victims will see some files on the computer with a vicrypt extension.

Entering the term ‘vicrypt’ into a search engine leads us to a company offering a fix, which of course is a charged service. So, there was a reason for that file extension after all.

The security vendor has developed a Symantec Ramvicrype removal tool for victims to decrypt the files.

The one other solution is to make sure you have a current image file of your system and then restore if hit by crippling malware such as this one.

hat tip to the Security Bytes team.