Windows Diagnostic is the worst virus I have encountered so far
Today, I was in the middle of browsing through a job search engine when a my antivirus program warned me of a virus. Now I had frequented this website numerous times so I was quite surprised when my avast warned me of this. This website was called Snagajob.com, which is a website for hourly positions like Monster.com or other jobsearch engines of that kind.
All of a sudden, my computer popped up a window claiming to be Windows Diagnostic and was demanding that I remove the trojan.
Welll I might not be the savviest when it comes to computers, but I know not to click on a pop up window that looked as suspicious as this one did. I automattically saved all my documents, removed my flash drive, and closed all my windows. Then I had my avast antivirus perform a scan. In the middle of the scan, a window popped up saying my hard drive had failed and I should start my system over again. That's when I called my father over and had him look at it.
He got on his computer and looked up this virus. Turns out, it's a nasty one. It hid every single one of my files on my computer and turned off my antivirus program. He had anti-malware on a thumb drive and ran it on my computer. But the virus just turned it off. And then tragically, it logged off my computer. He quickly put the computer into safe mode and went back to his computer to do some research.
He found this website called bleepingcomputer.com. It described the virus in full, and gave him direction on how to remove it. We followed everything it told us to do and managed to stop the virus and remove it. I've attached a hyperlink so you can find the exact page.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-windows-diagnostic
If you cant open it, or wont, I'll paste it into a "read more break". I have, however, removed all the links from the "read more break" because I don't want anybody blaming me for whatever goes wrong on their computer. Trust at your own discretion. I'm just saying, this website worked for mine, and it should work for yours. Β
Anway, so the virus was gone. But all my files were still hidden. So he went to the C drive and unhid every single file in my drive. All my files were then recovered. But the "Windows Diagnostic" was still in my programs and documents. So he removed those as well. So far, everything seems to be going well and I know for sure I will never use Snagajob.com again.
Hopes this helps if anybody else has a similar problem like mine.
Automated Removal Instructions for Windows Diagnostic using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
Print out these instructions as we may need to close every window that is open later in the fix.
It is possible that the infection you are trying to remove will not allow you to download files on the infected computer. If this is the case, then you will need to download the files requested in this guide on another computer and then transfer them to the infected computer. You can transfer the files via a CD/DVD, external drive, or USB flash drive.
Before we can do anything we must first end the processes that belong to Windows Diagnostic so that it does not interfere with the cleaning procedure. To do this, please download RKill to your desktop from the following link.
RKill Download Link - (Download page will open in a new tab or browser window.)
When at the download page, click on the Download Now button labeled iExplore.exe download link. When you are prompted where to save it, please save it on your desktop.
Once it is downloaded, double-click on the iExplore.exe icon in order to automatically attempt to stop any processes associated with Windows Diagnostic and other Rogue programs. Please be patient while the program looks for various malware programs and ends them. When it has finished, the black window will automatically close and you can continue with the next step. If you get a message that RKill is an infection, do not be concerned. This message is just a fake warning given by Windows Diagnostic when it terminates programs that may potentially remove it. If you run into these infections warnings that close RKill, a trick is to leave the warning on the screen and then run RKill again. By not closing the warning, this typically will allow you to bypass the malware trying to protect itself so that rkill can terminate Windows Diagnostic . So, please try running RKill until the malware is no longer running. You will then be able to proceed with the rest of the guide. If you continue having problems running RKill, you can download the other renamed versions of RKill from the rkill download page. All of the files are renamed copies of RKill, which you can try instead. Please note that the download page will open in a new browser window or tab.
Do not reboot your computer after running RKill as the malware programs will start again.
Now you should download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, or MBAM, from the following location and save it to your desktop:
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Download Link (Download page will open in a new window)
Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including this one.
Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing, make sure you leave both the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Β Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware checked. Then click on the Finish button. If MalwareBytes' prompts you to reboot, please do not do so.
MBAM will now automatically start and you will see a message stating that you should update the program before performing a scan. As MBAM will automatically update itself after the install, you can press the OK button to close that box and you will now be at the main program as shown below.
On the Scanner tab, make sure the the Perform full scan option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for Windows Diagnostic related files.
MBAM will now start scanning your computer for malware. This process can take quite a while, so we suggest you go and do something else and periodically check on the status of the scan. When MBAM is scanning it will look like the image below.
When the scan is finished a message box will appear as shown in the image below.
You should click on the OK button to close the message box and continue with the WindowsDiagnostic removal process.
You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should click on the Show Results button.
A screen displaying all the malware that the program found will be shown as seen in the image below. Please note that the infections found may be different than what is shown in the image.
You should now click on the Remove Selected button to remove all the listed malware. MBAM will now delete all of the files and registry keys and add them to the programs quarantine. When removing the files, MBAM may require a reboot in order to remove some of them. If it displays a message stating that it needs to reboot, please allow it to do so. Once your computer has rebooted, and you are logged in, please continue with the rest of the steps.
When MBAM has finished removing the malware, it will open the scan log and display it in Notepad. Review the log as desired, and then close the Notepad window.
You can now exit the MBAM program.
As many rogues and other malware are installed through vulnerabilities found in out-dated and insecure programs, it is strongly suggested that you use Secunia PSI to scan for vulnerable programs on your computer. A tutorial on how to use Secunia PSI to scan for vulnerable programs can be found here:
How to detect vulnerable and out-dated programs using Secunia Personal Software Inspector
Your computer should now be free of the WindowsDiagnostic program. If your current anti-virus solution let this infection through, you may want to consider purchasing the PRO version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to protect against these types of threats in the future.
If you are still having problems with your computer after completing these instructions, then please follow the steps outlined in the topic linked below:
