Do you know what HDD Doctor is?
Even expert users can be forgiven for falling victim to the clever and insidious scare tactics of rogue system optimizer HDD Doctor, a well known sibling to the ThinkPoint and HDD Plus rogue system defragmenters. HDD Doctor will stop at nothing to attain its sinister goal – to fleece its victim out of his hard earned money while leaving him with nothing but an empty shell in return.
HDD Doctor makes use of well documented distribution methods also employed by its counterparts. Trojan horse and malware infections are used mainly as a clandestine form of infection, which infiltrates the system through being bundled with other third party downloads. Illicit websites making use of drive-by download techniques are used mainly as an effective and discreet way of rooting the HDD Doctor infection on the targeted victim’s PC.
These websites are completely fraudulent, and make their money directly from the end user. Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest goring ways rogueware and malware like HDD Doctor is spreading across the Internet, and is fast becoming one consumers’ biggest headaches. Do not believe anything these websites has to sell, as it is completely and utterly false and self serving.
HDD Doctor differs from most common rogues in the sense that it writes all unique fake warning messages. These fake warnings are used as part of HDD Doctor’s attack against the PC, in an effort to create panic among its victims as well as to gain their trust. Some of the more notorious bogus warnings to be on the lookout for include:
"The system will reboot in xxx seconds
Windows can not continue operating due to fatal system error.
Windows was forced to restart.
All unsaved data will be lost."
And furthermore might state:
"Can not find : xxxx
File may be deleted or corrupt.
Is is strongly recommanded to scan the disk for errors. Can not find : xxxx
File may be deleted or corrupt.
Is is strongly recommanded to scan the disk for errors."
"The system disk contains a large number of critical errors.
Windows could not fix most of them.
You can install install trial version of the third party software “HDD doctor” to fix found bugs. Install “HDD Doctor” now?"
"Confirmation
HDD doctor detected an error on your hard drive when trying to access a file
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
Perform data recovery now?"
"Disk Error
Can not find file: C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
File may be deleted or corrupt.
It is strongly recommended to check the disk for errors."
"Serious system error
The system will reboot in 37 seconds
“Windows can not continue operating due to fatal system error.
Windows was forced to restart.
All unsaved data will be lost."
"Confirmation
The system disk contains a large number of critical errors.
Windows could not fix most of them.
You can install install trial version of the third party software "HDD doctor" to fix found bugs.
Install "HDD doctor" now?"
"Confirmation
Your hard drive contains a lot of critical errors!
All your data including installed programs, documents, email, etc. are at risk of irreversible corrupt.
The trial version does not have low-level access module needed to fix the errors found.
It is strongly recommended to activate the full version software with necessary modules. Activate full version now?
Users should take note of the many grammatical and spelling errors in the fake messages, as it serves as an indication of the unprofessional and sinister labour behind HDD Doctor. Do not afford any attention to the fake security messages, as there is no truth or goodwill behind them.
Don’t fall victim to the insidious and incredulous attacks of this ultimately destructive rogueware. Get rid of HDD Doctor before it causes irreparable damage to your PC. In order to positively and permanently erase HDD Doctor from the system, make use of the removal power of a well known and accredited security application.
In non techie terms:
HDD Doctor is a fake security product only out to steal your money. Do not believe any correspondence received from HDD Doctor. HDD Doctor is not able to live up to any of its promises, and you should consider everything about HDD Doctor as suspicious. Remove HDD Doctor at the earliest convenience to avoid irreversible damage from occurring to your valued PC.
Aliases: HDDDoctor.