Mysterious folders appearing on my computer

Factual Questions
1

Okay, something weird. The last two days I’ve been noticing that unknown folders appear on my computer. The names vary, the current one being “0 Clkq4”

So far I’ve spotted these mystery folders on my C: drive, D: (My HP=Recovery) drive that normally has nothing except a ‘Recovery’ folder with a specialized icon and G: which is an external hard drive. I also sometimes see an icon informing me that my A: drive is “Disconnected Network Drive” with a red X. This computer has never had a Network drive, but until this last two days I’ve never been informed of that fact by File Explorer. Possibly a sign some malware tried to install one of these bogus files onto it? A couple thumb drives I keep permanently plugged in for specialized backups don’t have any mystery folders that I can see.

Inside these folders are ten files (always ten, in the ones I’ve checked.) One each .xlsx, .sql, .mdb, .jpg, .pem, .doc, .xls, .rtf, .txt, .docx with what look like word-salad titles. Like “admire-printed-reason-device.xls” and “bundle_movie.txt” and “punctualbreathforgotten.rtf” and so on. (The names vary from folder to folder.) All of the files are smallish (from 20kb to 509kb for the folder I’m currently viewing) and the files I tried to open aren’t what their extensions say. The text/docx/rtf/doc/xls ones mostly seem to be an endless stream of letters/numbers, viewers call the JPGs corrupt, and so forth.

Otherwise my computer seems to be running absolutely normally. A MSE scan turned up nothing suspicious.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Note: Earlier this week installed a program called Cyberreason RansomFree 2.2.2.0 which claimed to recognize and prevent Ransom ware. I have no real reason to suspect it but the timing bothers me.

Oh, just noticed: so far these mystery folders are either the first or last in the drive’s listing, maybe that is significant?

2

Have you “googled” these file names to find out what they are? Usually your shortest path to enlightenment for this type of mystery.

3

Here you go. I think. Bait files set by RansomFree.

4

Oh, thank you! I had googled for unknown folders appearing etc. but that really useful post didn’t come up.

And I guess it makes sense for the bait to be top and bottom. (That’s the main reason I noticed them, I generally keep a particular folder at the very top because I access it so often, and it suddenly wasn’t at the top.

And, yes, I’d simply clicked past that ‘note’ from the software company. <blush>

5

Questions like these can be so useful! I wasn’t aware of this software but having checked out the reviews I’m impressed and have just installed it myself. Thank you for starting the thread, StarvingButStrong.

6

You’re welcome. Glad some benefit came from my failure to properly RTFM.