This article features a detailed tutorial on how to remove wannacry ransomware on Windows. If you want to know about WannaCry Attack and want to Remove WannaCry Ransomware, then you should check the below guide section!
Spreading over 100 countries and over 200,000 Windows-based computer systems, the WannaCry ransomware is one of the biggest recent cyber attacks that the World has seen. The WannaCry ransomware attack began on Friday, 12th of May, 2017. As said before, many people got affected with this and they struggle to Remove WannaCry Ransomware on Windows and other platforms including Mac OS too! So thought of sharing the genuine working method that helps to Remove WannaCry Ransomware easily without any issues!
Contents
What is a Ransomware?
For those who are not very familiar with the term ransomware, a ransomware is a malicious software that once entered into your computer, restricts your access to the computer. To gain back access to the system, the hackers who placed the ransomware in your system will require you to pay some ransom, hence the term ransomware.
Hackers behind the WannaCry ransomware had asked the victims to pay the ransom as BitCoin cash. You can read more about Wannacry Ransomware from here.
How is the WannaCry Ransomware Attack Spread?
The WannaCry ransomware, or basically any other ransomware will be spread to your systems when you open fake links on your web browser or when you download stuff from unauthorized websites or when you download attachments from emails. So always make sure that you download anything from authorized and safe sources only.
The WannaCry ransomware especially was spread through Windows-powered machines. The countries badly affected by the WannaCry ransomware include India, Russia, Ukraine, and Taiwan. The very popular MNC’s hit by the WannaCry ransomware includes FedEx and LATAM Airlines. Even Britain’s National Health Services was affected by the attack.
If you own a Windows machine or if you live in any of the harshly affected countries or in the worst case if your Windows system is infected by the WannaCry ransomware, today we bring you a detailed tutorial on how to remove WannaCry ransomware on Windows.
How to Remove WannaCry Ransomware on Windows?
Below is the step-by-step guide that will take you through the processes required to remove WannaCry ransomware on Windows:
- To get rid of the WannaCry ransomware on Windows, boot your Windows PC in the Safe Mode. To boot into the Safe Mode, launch the “Run” application and type in “msconfig.exe” and press enter, Once the System Configuration Window appears, switch to the “Boot” tab, check the “Safe Boot” checkbox and press on the “Enter” button.
- Once your Windows PC has booted in Safe Mode, go to the “Control Panel”, and then “Folder Options”, and check the “Show Hidden Files and Folders” box and uncheck the “Hide Empty Drive in Computer Folder”,”Hide Extension for Known File Types” and “Hide Protected Operating System” boxes. Click on the “Yes” button if prompted with a popup box, then the “Apply” button and then press “OK”.
- Again launch the “Run” app and then type the “msconfig.exe” and press Enter. From the window that appears, go to “Search Options”>”Startup” Tab and then disable any unknown or suspicious programs that are running on your system. Once done, click on the “Apply” button and then the “OK” button.
- Following the above step, delete any unknown applications from your system with weird extensions like “.wry”,”.pky”,”.res.” etc.
- Now, again launch the “run” application and then type the command “%temp%” and then delete all the files from the window that appears. Follow the same for the “%programdata” command as well.
- Go to the “Drive C:>Windows>System32>Drivers>etc” location. This is where the corrupted host file attacked by the ransomware should mostly be present. Open all the host files in the location in either WordPad or notepad and check whether some third-party links are present in them or not. If yes, delete only the links and then save the rest of the host file.
- Perform a complete System Scan of your computer using an Antivirus software.
- Now launch the “Run” app and then type the command “msconfig.exe”. Similar to step 1, go to the “Boot” tab and then uncheck the “Safe Boot” option and click “OK”.
- Reboot your System.
To Conclude
That was the detailed step-by-step guide to remove WannaCry Ransomware on Windows-powered PC’s. Hope the above guide helped you remove WannaCry ransomware on Windows.
Do share this article and spread the word to help others who may be infected and to Remove WannaCry Ransomware on Windows. Also, check out How to find Patch for WaanaCry by joining the Microsoft Forum Discussions. Stay tuned for more updates!
