I was able to see one of the newest fake Windows Diagnosis infections in the wild, and wanted to warn you about it. There are several of them and you might get all of a sudden one or more alarming windows telling you that your system or hard disk drive has several errors and a scan with an advanced module is in order, and then an attempt to coerce you into paying for that advanced module. All these alerts are of course fake and should be ignored.

One thing this infection does that might freak you out for a moment is the fact that the files in your hard disk seem to disappear. You try to access your documents, or open My Computer, and nothing shows as the contents of it. Don’t worry; The files are there, but the infection has changed an attribute in all files which hides them from normal view. This is reversible but the steps to do so plus the cleanup process are beyond the scope of this article, so contact me if you find yourself in this situation and don’t know what to do.

As usual, exert caution when clicking on links in emails, phony looking websites and any inviting, luring offers to download unknown files/programs to your computer.