File Recovery Virus

File Recovery Virus – Fake Hard Drive Failure Alert

A tricky little virus masking itself as a file recovery utility has been popping up recently. The file recovery virus strikes at the heart of what most of us fear the most, losing our data. So it can be easy for someone without experience with the behavior of such malicious software to be put in a state of panic. Don’t worry there is hope! If any of the following does not make any sense, take your computer to a reliable computer repair expert in your area, they will know what to do!

File Recovery Virus Characteristics

In a nutshell the file recovery computer virus has two main stages as far as I can tell. The first thing it does is hide your data files. Your desktop can just disappear! Documents, music and picture files are also hidden from the user interface. In some instances the data files are dumped in the recycling bin. Then secondly, as if the first stage is not stressful enough, the virus does a mock or false scan of your computers hard drive. This is the part where you will see the fake file recovery utility pop up with some bogus errors it found on your hard drive (see image below).

Image: File Recovery Virus

After displaying all the “errors” the file recovery virus claims to have found, it offers a “fix” for the problem. That’s where the creators of this virus hope to make money from unsuspecting victims. This is a typical behavior of most Trojan type Malware (malicious software).

What’s unnerving about such a computer virus is the mystery behind how it operates. So, I hope shedding some light into the situation can at least bring some relief. You don’t have to get a new computer, there is hope for your computer and your data can be recovered fairly easily by an experienced computer technician. That is something to think about before resorting to wiping your data by reinstalling your operating system.