Even if you follow all the Cardinal Rules of system security — you regularly update your operating system and programs, avoid spam like the plague and never click through on suspicious links and, of course, you use an antivirus suite — there may still come the darkest of computing days when your system is infected with malware. But how will you know? Follow the below tutorial and check if your computer is malware infected.
For complete understanding, first of all you need to know what is a malware?
The term malware is short for “malicious software.” Malware refers to any computer program that is designed to do things that are harmful to or unwanted by a computer’s legitimate user — meaning you.
So what is malware? It comes in a bewildering variety of forms. Computer viruses are probably the most familiar type of malware — so named because they spread by making copies of themselves. Worms have a similar property. Other types of malware, such as spyware, are named for what they do: In the case of spyware, it transmits personal information, such as credit card numbers.
Watch this video by kaspersky to get a better view:
Check If Your computer is malware infected:
1. Ransomware
This one’s the most obvious. Ransomware authors want to make it perfectly clear that you have a malware infection—that’s how they make their money. If you’ve got ransomware, you’ll get a pop-up that tells you your files have been encrypted and there’s a deadline to pay a ransom in order to get them back.
Skype scam is a popular example of Ransomware. If you are a skype user, you should read about some of the popular skype scams HERE.
2. Browser redirects
You click on a link after doing a Google search on “my computer’s acting strange.” Link opens to a different page. You head back to your search results and try a different link. Same thing happens. Over and over you’re redirected to a different site from the one you’re trying to reach. Remember those popup messages saying, your computer is about to crash down. Call some odd number to get help? That, my friend, is a malware infection.
If you are getting such scam popups, we do have a tutorial for getting rid of techsupport popup scams HERE
3. Different home page
Say you set your home page to be your favorite news site. But for some reason, Yahoo.com keeps coming up. You also notice some new toolbars (rows of selectable icons) below your browser window that you can’t get rid of. You could either have a major case of the forgets, or, more likely, you’ve got an infection.
4. Bombarded with pop-ups
We’re talking: can’t escape. Close one, another one opens. Or you’re not even online, and you’re getting pop-up messages on your system. Some sites admittedly have terrible ad experiences that feel like something nefarious is going on (but really isn’t). Most of the time, if your screen is loaded with pop-ups, you’re looking at an adware or spyware infection.
If your browser is infected by such popups, follow our tutorial HERE to get help.
5. Web browser freezes or is unresponsive
There could be many reasons why your browser is so low. But from my experience, i can tell you it is mostly because of those bad malwares. If you think, your browser is slower then usual, follow the below tutorial to get help HERE.
6. Computer running slow
It takes longer than normal for your operating system to boot up? Are you waiting too long for some of your programs to start?
It is a known fact that malware has the tendency to slow down your operating system, your Internet speed or the speed of your applications.
If you notice something like this and you are not using any resource-heavy program or application, check first for other causes. It may be a lack of RAM memory, a fragmented system, a lack of space on your hard drive or maybe a hardware issue affecting your drive.
If you have already verified these possible causes and all seemed fine, maybe you should start suspecting a malware issue on the system.
For additional reasons why your computer might be slow and how to fix it, take a look at the article HERE.
7. Constant Crashing:
If your programs or your system regularly crash or the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) appears regularly, it is a clear warning that your system is not working properly and you should look into it.
We need to mention here the 2 particular cases which may cause this problem. You could be dealing with a technical issue caused by a potential incompatibility between your programs or it may be a malware issue.
If you suspect a technical issue, multiple software problems may lead to this.Are you running various programs which may conflict with each other? Is there any orphan registry keys which have not been removed slowing down and eventually crashing your system?
If you are checking for malware, simply run a complete scan on the system with a good antivirus product. It is important to have a reliable security solution on your system, which should include real-time scanning, automatic update and a firewall.
Learn How to use Windows Defender to remove virus/spyware from your computer HERE
8. Running out of hard drive space
Regarding the hard drive, you also need to check if your physical storage space has been increasing lately or if some of your files disappeared or changed their names. This is another sign of malware activity, since there are numerous types of malicious software which use various methods to fill up all the available space in the hard drive.
9. Unusual messages or programs starting automatically
If, all of a sudden, you see programs opening and closing automatically, your Windows operating system shutting down without reason or you have strange windows in the booting process and Windows lets you know that you lost access to some of your drives, this is something you should worry about.
Though it may be a technical issue, it is also a sign that malware could be present on the system. If this is the case and you lost access to some important areas of your operating system, you need to prepare for the worst. These are the cases when a complete wipe and reinstall of the operating system is taken into consideration.
Learn how to clean install windows 10 HERE.
10. Lots of bounced email
We’ve all mistakenly typed in the wrong email address and hit “send.” But if you’re getting a suspiciously high number of bounces, or emails that return to your inbox undelivered, something else is going on.
First, your email address could have been hacked and is now being used to spam the crap out of your contacts list. Or malware could be the culprit. How? An infected computer sends out emails using the addresses it found in your computer. If the “To” address doesn’t work, the message bounces back to the “From” address, which is often yours.
11. Your security solution is disabled
Your antivirus solution doesn’t seem to work anymore or the Update module seems to be disabled. You should know that some malware programs are specially designed to disable security programs, leaving you without any defense. If you already tried to reboot your computer, close and open the security solution and all other normal troubleshooting steps resulted in no positive outcome, you may consider that your computer has been affected by malware.
Learn How to use Windows Defender to remove virus/spyware from your computer HERE
12. Blacklisted IP Address:
If you receive notification that your IP address has been blacklisted, consider this about as sure a sign as any that your PC is not in good hands — there’s a very good chance it means your system has been compromised and is being used as one tentacle in far-reaching, spam-sending botnet.
13. High Network Activity:
There are cases where the user is not connected to the Internet with his browser and there is no program that may connect to online servers to download or upload any data, but a high network activity can still be observed.
First of all, we need to check the following:
1. Is there any Windows update at that moment?
2. Is there any program or application that may be downloading or uploading any data?
3. Is there any update for a certain program running at that moment?
4. Is there a large download that you started and forgot about it and is still running in the background?
If the answer to all these questions is No, then maybe you should check where all that traffic is going.
Follow our tutorial HERE to get help.
Conclusion:
Since we live in a threat environment, online security means not only to install a series of security programs and forget about them, but to understand how malware manifests itself on the system and thus to know our enemy. If you don’t see any of the above mentioned signs, Your computer still might be infected. Many forms of malware, including botnets and others designed to steal your data, are nearly impossible to detect.
Here is your chance to get a FREE checkup call by one of our technical expert, who can scan your computer and check for any suspicious files/program and help you to secure your computer as well as your identity.
Source: MalwareBytes , heimdalsecurity, kaspersky
