Viruses and Malware (including Adware, Spyware, worms, trojan horses, crimware, rootkits)
You may be experiencing any of the following symptoms if your PC has been infected by a Virus or Malware.
- Your PC slows down significantly, whether online or offline.
- Your internet speed slows dramatically.
- You regularly exceed your internet download allowance.
- You have "Pop-ups" or advertisements appearing from nowhere.
- You are receiving alerts (possibly pop-ups) from an unknown program telling you that viruses or spyware has been detected.
- Your anti-virus software turns off by itself or does not update.
- Your networking connectivity icon flashes a lot, even when not using the internet
- Random and unusual problems occur with programs behaving not as they should.
- When surfing the internet you are redirected to web pages you have not requested.
- Your browsers default home page has changed by itself
- You are being notified of bounced emails or you can see emails that have been sent without your knowledge.
| If you have any of these Symptoms, call Neighbourhood Nerds immediately. Viruses and other malicious software can cause data loss and pose real security risks. In particular malware can allow individuals to access your bank account, credit reporting information, or even completely steal your identity. Our technicians will be able to identify and neutralize threats, provide you with options for remedial action and most importantly help you with avoiding future infections. |
Some important information Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming (code, scripts, active content, and other software) designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, gain unauthorized access to system resources, and other abusive behavior.[1] The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.[2]
Software is considered to be malware based on the perceived intent of the creator rather than any particular features. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, scareware, crimeware, most rootkits, and other malicious and unwanted software or program. In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant
Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's personal computer. Sometimes, however, spywares such as keyloggers are installed by the owner of a shared, corporate, or public computer on purpose in order to secretly monitor other users.
Unlike viruses and worms, spyware does not usually self-replicate. Like many recent viruses, however, spyware—by design—exploits infected computers for commercial gain. Typical tactics include delivery of unsolicited pop-up advertisements, theft of personal information (including financial information such as credit card numbers), monitoring of Web-browsing activity for marketing purposes, and routing of HTTP requests to advertising sites.
Spyware does not directly spread in the manner of a computer virus or worm: generally, an infected system does not attempt to transmit the infection to other computers. Instead, spyware gets on a system through deception of the user or through exploitation of software vulnerabilities.
A computer worm is a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, even if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.
A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive.
Operating system reinstallation
Reinstalling the operating system is our primary approach to virus removal and is the only guarantee of removing unwanted malware. This process involves reformatting the computer's hard drive and installing the OS and all programs from original media, or restoring the entire partition with a clean backup image. User data can be restored by booting from a Live CD, or putting the hard drive into another computer and booting from its operating system with great care not to infect the second computer by executing any infected programs on the original drive; and once the system has been restored precautions must be taken to avoid reinfection from a restored executable file.
These methods are simple to do, may be faster than disinfecting a computer, and are guaranteed to remove any malware. If the operating system and programs must be reinstalled from scratch, the time and effort to reinstall, reconfigure, and restore user preferences must be taken into account.