A computer security question: Too many 'date modified folders'?

[mech-eng]

TL;DR Summary

I want to learn the reason for too many 'date modified folders'.

Hello. I need to ask about my folders. My 26,263 folders became 'date modified' in 8 minutes. I created those folders and I am aware they stood there. I think any human being can't be so quick.

It seems that this is a good news bad news scenerio, and the only good reason I can think of for that happened is that my antivirus scanned my folders so they became 'date modified'. But what could be bad news for me when there is no clear problem?

How can they become 'date modified' so quickly?

 

[Mark44]

Summary: I want to learn the reason for too many 'date modified folders'.

the only good reason I can think of for that happened is that my antivirus scanned my folders so they became 'date modified'. But what could be bad news for me when there is no clear problem?

How can they become 'date modified' so quickly?

I don't think your logic is correct. To the best of my knowledge, an AV scanner is just reading the files, but not modifying them, so shouldn't be changing the dates of the folders the files are in.

 

[mech-eng]

I don't think your logic is correct. To the best of my knowledge, an AV scanner is just reading the files, but not modifying them, so shouldn't be changing the dates of the folders the files are in.

90% or more of them have not been including files since created, but they generally include another empty folder. So even if that is an attack, what can it be? Why would any malware, virus or whatever it is want to change empty folders? This is really very confusing to me. Can it be anything other than attack?

 

[.Scott]

Summary: I want to learn the reason for too many 'date modified folders'.

Hello. I need to ask about my folders. My 26,263 folders became 'date modified' in 8 minutes. I created those folders and I am aware they stood there. I think any human being can't be so quick.

It seems that this is a good news bad news scenerio, and the only good reason I can think of for that happened is that my antivirus scanned my folders so they became 'date modified'. But what could be bad news for me when there is no clear problem?

How can they become 'date modified' so quickly?

Certainly the modifications occurred through an automated process.
My first thought is that the directory structure was simply copied - perhaps you were baking them up or perhaps you made an inadvertent drag/drop operation.

It is also possible that a virus was attached to each file. If any of them were text files (*.txt), you verify that they were also modified. If so, you could open one of them with notepad or you favorite text editing tool using the "open with" option (in this case using the default would be dangerous) and check that nothing has been inserted or appended. If only certain file types have been modified, that would be very worrisome.

 

[WWGD]

If you're usig Windows, look at your File Explorer and order them by "Date Modified" .