I’m from Canada and was looking for the return policy for Winners (kind of like TJ Maxx or Ross). I’ve had bad experiences with malware before, so I double-checked that I was on the correct website—it was a .ca site, not a .com, and it looked legit based on the search results. But when I clicked on the link, it downloaded a 17 KB file called ‘returns’ with a .file extension. I panicked and deleted it right away. My boyfriend also downloaded it by accident but scanned it with Kaspersky before deleting it. I’ve run full scans with Malwarebytes and Kaspersky, and nothing was found. I never opened the file. Should my computer be safe?
Did you manage to see the return policy you were looking for?
It could just be a temporary issue with the website. Sometimes the server tells your browser to download a file instead of showing it as a web page. This might have been what happened here.
The chance of the Winners website being hacked to serve malware is pretty low. That’s something that would likely be reported in the news, and Winners would probably have a notice up on their site if it had happened.
Also, 17 KB is a really small file, and most malware or executable programs would be bigger than that. While malware can be small, it’s rare.
It’s also unlikely you’d get infected just by downloading the file. Usually, you’d have to open or run it for it to do any damage. Since you didn’t open the file, you’re probably safe.
Lastly, the .file extension is just a generic one. It’s used when the computer doesn’t recognize the file type. Files with this extension don’t usually execute anything, so even if you tried to open it, it probably wouldn’t have done anything harmful.
Did you try opening it with Notepad?
You could try renaming the file to .pdf and then uploading it to Google Drive to open it. It’s safe to open a file inside a web service like Google Drive. If you’re still worried, you can also upload it to VirusTotal and scan it there.