You are surfing a website or opening an attachment from a friend’s email when it happens. A strange pop-up appears. Perhaps then Windows starts to respond strangely. Your Internet browser begins to randomly open sites or displays ad banners in pop-up windows. All of these are signs of malware infection and indicate that it’s time to prevent further infection and file damage.
Some of these symptoms may seem like more of an annoyance than a threat.
However, where one malware may be irritating, another may be gathering
your personal data and using it without your knowledge. Yet another
virus may be launching warfare on your computer’s system files, which
your computer needs to run properly.
Because it’s difficult to determine
the virus’ threat level, it’s always important to respond with computer
virus removal as soon as you identify an infection.
What is a Computer Virus?
A computer virus is an invading program, usually obtained from
launching infected websites, downloading an infected file or installing
an infected program. Viruses can cause various issues with your computer
from sending infected emails to downloading more viruses to complicate
the infection.
Tricky viruses are designed to hide and imitate important
system files or pass themselves off as legitimate programs, sometimes
even as virus scanners, making computer virus removal even more
difficult to execute. Because you can never tell what the infected
program is really doing to your computer’s files and your personal data
every time you turn on your machine, it’s better to remove the virus
rather than risk data loss.
What is Spyware?
Spyware is a type of malware that tracks and obtains information
about you and your computer habits. This can be as simple as a program
that records which websites you visit or as dangerous as a keylogger
that records what you type, including personal password and login
information. Spyware programs can slow down your computer and Internet
connections, change your computer settings and even alter your Internet
homepage. Because spyware gathers and shares your personal data, it’s
extremely important to clean the malware from your computer and protect
your data from theft.
What is Adware?
Adware is another type of malware that often displays pop-up windows
that contain banners or ads for products or websites. Sometimes adware
can even alter your browser settings and cause your browser to open
webpages that you do not authorize.
Adware tends to be difficult to get
rid of and can require specialized virus software to remove.
Malware Removal and Prevention
If your computer becomes infected,
don’t panic! You can find a number
of virus programs online, often for free, that identify and remove all
types of malware. If you run repeated scans and keep finding more
viruses, this may be a sign of a downloader infection. In this case,
ensure that your computer is not connected to the Internet when scanning
to prevent existing viruses from downloading more infected files.
Computer hackers and virus developers are constantly releasing new
threats on the Internet, often faster than normal computer virus removal
and spyware removal software can combat. Software is a powerful tool,
but it can’t always identify and remove every type of malware. When
software fails or when sensitive operating system files become infected,
technicians can also provide professional computer virus removal
services that clean your computer without damaging mandatory programs
and files.
Usually, however, prevention is the best practice when dealing with infection.
Ensure that you have an update malware program that always runs in the background and alerts you to issues before they happen.
Also, don’t open files from unusual emails, install unknown programs or
navigate to websites that seem suspicious in nature. In the end, the
only good computer virus is the one that you didn’t catch.
