What is a vmzfukk file?

My husband is a computer engineer. He told me that that is not a valid extension that you should not open them at all.

If you downloaded the files from somewhere I’d delete them. If the files are your photos and the extension has changed then I’d suspect you have some sort of malware.

Sounds like bad news. I have never seen or heard of that extension either and it appears suspicious.

If the file is simply named like that and has no extension, then you might try renaming the file to “vmzfukk.jpg” and try opening it with your photo viewing software.

I would only recommend that if:
– You’re certain that the files really are photos, and were simply mis-named at some point, and
– You’re certain of the source. By that I mean not just “Oh, they came from Jane, so they’re good” (because Jane’s computer or email account may be compromised and sending viruses that she doesn’t know about), but “I know that Jane took these photos herself and named the files.”
– You’ve scanned them with a reliable and up-to-date virus scanner.

I would get your computer checked for malware.

The “FUKK” part is a clue that something nefarious is going on. If nothing else, extensions are 3 or 4 letters, not 7, and definitely not one that would be seen as vulgar or potentially offensive. (Most legitimate developers have a thing about being sued or fined.)

As long a they are not a naughty picture you can email one to me and I will take a look. I will just spin up a fresh Ubuntu VM so no harm can be done to my computer.

Thanks all. Not sure how they got renamed like that in the first place. I suspect it’s a virus or malware situation. My laptop was running a little slow and web browser wouldn’t load. Some word documents were also renamed this extension so not just photos. Well I went ahead just deleted the culprits and refreshed my laptop. Seems to be working fine now. I had everything saved on a hard drive prior so I didn’t really lose any data.

@AshlynM Run a virus scanner ASAP. AGV is a good free option but there are many others. Running several is a good idea.

I will take a different stance (a wide one). It is sort of game over once your computer has been compromised. While your anti-virus might make it seem like the problem is gone someone compromised your computer and there is a good chance they could have left something behind that is still there shooting off you banking info to a server in Russia..

I would look into how to make good back-ups and how to do a fresh install of Windows and restore from that back-up. It isn’t actually that painful.

@jerv I have seen an extension that was quite a few characters long before. I think it belonged to a game software, but it was a few years ago so I don’t recall exactly what it was.

I agree with everyone else. Reinstall your operating system AND scan your backups for malware/viruses… BEFORE using them. The worst thing in system recovery is when a virus manages to hide in the backups and get reinstalled when you use the backup. Quite a few different file types can hold viruses, so be sure not to plug in your backup device before you have installed AVG or another virus system.

… You do have an external backup device, such as an external harddrive, right?

Before you do that though, you can try submitting the file to online virus systems.