“Don’t
talk to strangers,” a simple piece of advice that almost every child
hears growing up yet remains pertinent in many scenarios later on in
life. While there are obvious exceptions to this warning rarely do they
apply to the encounters you have with “reputable security companies”
who pop up on your computer screen imploring you to download or
purchase their software to avoid an imminent attack on your hard drive.
These
“reputable security companies” are almost always a simple band of cyber
criminals who write scareware applications designed to take your money
or infect your computer, and often times both. We’ve all seen their
work; it almost always warns that a threat has been detected and in
order to protect your computer from any damage you should download
their software.
Of
course these messages are nothing more than malware and the software
they are peddling provides no benefit to your computer and in fact can
cause serious damage if downloaded. For years these cyber criminals
have played on the fears of a computer virus knowing that they could
simply scare a computer owner into downloading the software but there
has been a shift in their approach as more and more people have become
aware of the virus scam. Now these malware writers are using another
scare tactic; warning computer owners that their drive is in danger of
crashing due to fragmentation.
Instead
of pitching anti-virus software these messages encourage the computer
owner to download defragmentation software to clean up their drive and
keep their computer operable. Just as the anti-virus software appears
real these malware writers go to great lengths to make their fake
defragmentation software look legitimate, and it often works.
It
works because fragmentation is a very real computer disease that can
paralyze your computer, causing serious slowdowns, destroy its
reliability and eventually cause the hard drive to crash. Seeing a
message that warns of all these threats is enough for many to trust the
messenger and download the software.
Unfortunately
the messenger is the source of the problem and the fake defragmenters
that they promote do nothing to protect your computer from
fragmentation. Before you consider downloading that software remember
that piece of advice you heard as a kid, “don’t talk to strangers.” A
simple search on any of these “companies” will often reveal their true
identity.
What
that search will also reveal is the legitimate companies who offer
defragmentation software, companies like Diskeeper which has
established itself as the clear market leader in the defrag industry.
There
is one redeeming quality when it comes to these fake defragmenters and
that is it may make you aware of the dangers associated with
fragmentation. If you’ve noticed a slowdown in the time it takes to
boot up your system, have had difficulty retrieving files or
applications, found accessing your email or other communication tools
to be time-consuming or experienced sluggish Internet browsing then
chances are your hard drive is being affected by fragmentation.
This
can be easily remedied by legitimate defragmentation software, the kind
made by companies like Diskeeper. While it is important to ignore the
messenger who authored those pop ups don’t dismiss the message because
fragmentation is real, just don’t trust a stranger to fix it.
