The anti-malware program keeps out the known malware… and there is a LOT of it out there. A good anti-malware program can also catch many new “unknown” malware programs because they are often copied and slightly modified from other malware programs (not much real creativity involved)… this is where the Heuristic testing comes in.
A good anti-malware program also looks for sequences of commands and calls to the operating systemt that do things that most programs won’t do (like call routines that install drivers or access parts of the harddrive that only the OS should access or put links to itself in place of links to the OS. (links here mean internal addresses of subroutines and such, not links to the internet).
If what you click on has a new malware program and if it just doesn’t “look like” malware then yes, you just invited it to run on your computer and once in, it can be difficult to eliminate.
Thanks for that information. I will definitely look at putting in an anti-malware program.
Norm,
I might get it repared for $170. I can’t quite decide. Someone else quoted $195, and maybe up to $300 depending on whether a virus was involved. I bought the infected computer used from this same place that will sell me another 5-year old windows 7 computer for $300. It is hard do decide.
Well this infected computer is a Vista computer, and I know what you mean by the Yugo of operating systems. To me, that weighs in favor of recovering the files and scrapping it. I have a better computer for doing mechanical design with cad programs. That is Windows 7 and works fine.
Mike,
you mentioned backup. I agree that that is critical and needs multiple methods. For the cad work, losing data is a disaster. I back up to three separate remote hard drives by clickfree, and to the currently infected PC. But I am not sure if I could ever get the data off of those remote drives if I needed to. I spent several hours once attempting to do that, but was unable to make it happen.
FWIW, I’m not experiencing any notable threat activity. Just an observation, but what you might have is …overzealous settings in your protection software. Sometimes the people who sell antivirus software set their product up by default to be overly sensitive, to make it look as though it’s doing more to protect you than a competitors product.
There are viruses, there is malware, and there are PUPs (Potentially Undesireable Programs) Knowing the difference is important. Some antivirus software vendors set their programs up to report semi innocent PUPS as though they are malicious viruses, in hopes of making the user think they are experiencing superior detection (ie “my old antivirus never detected this problem”). PUPS are a common nuisance, but are not in the same league as worms, trojans, and rootkits.
According to my repair techs, this is true. Windows Defender is all you, anybody, using a modern PC, especially running 8 and 10, need. It never hurts to have one or two backups. I use malwarebytes and cyberprevent. The first has been discussed, and the second is a system that embeds itself right into Windows and lurks, waiting for one of the crypto-locker (FBI, CIA, Interpol, RCMP…) ransomeware variants to begin to change the extensions on your files.
If you are brave enough to try, unplug your computer from the router or remove the antenna if wireless, and start it. As soon as it begins to boot, press F8 repeatedly until you see it booting in safe mode. Find your control panel (your mouse will still work), find ‘recovery’, and pick a restore point about 10 days earlier, prior to any major updates you are aware of. Pick that point and direct your machine to do a system restore. Walk away and come back in about 30 minutes. If your log-in screen is showing, and you can log in to show your normal desktop, and it loads without a flag saying it didn’t restore properly, you are probably back in business. Go to windows updates in a search, and update to any now-missing windows updates.
Don’t forget to run your internet security and antivirus. Then run an updated malwarebytes.
A thorough search was made through the partition that the operating system is in and a few directories and files stood out like a sore thumb. Since they obviously weren’t operating system related, they were erased (deleted). I restarted the computer, and re-searched through the OS, and another related file was now present, so it was erased. Needless to say, the sore thumb files have not been back. And, the computer is now running fairly good again, even for the TRAINS website!
Kids and college kids home from school, folks doing last minute Christmas “shopping,” there’s lots of reasons for a slow 'Net. Could be that the data center or switch that hosts the Trains site is over-subscribed, too.
IMO a more reliable backup does not require a special program, just something based on the o/s copy command that does not disguise the existing files. If you want to do this ‘manually’, it is helpful to store all ‘personal’ data files on a separate partition and then ‘drag and drop’ in File Manager to the backup media. IIRC some cloud storage vendor programs (drivers) just make your remote storage look like another Windows drive letter.
Unfortunately, newer Windoze seems to be making it harder to move the equivalent of the old ‘My Documents’ folder to another partition. Someone more immersed in Windows can elaborate.
Newer versions of Windows disk manager can create a separate partition by reducing the size of the existing ‘C:’ drive. I’m uncomfortable with that, so I recommend using a standalone boot CD like ‘System Rescue CD’ or the Windows oriented ‘Partition Wizard Home Edition’.
My 2 cents worth on ‘the Cloud’ - while it may make you data available to all your devices; it also provides a convient location for hackers to reach and an take what they want.
For the benefit of all, the web is my business and in a nutshell, this is what I tell my clients:
A paid subscription comprehensive security suite is an absolute must if you surf the web or use email. Don’t rely only on the built-in Windows Defender. Only install one suite - two will suck up all your resources and your computer will slow drastically. As stated previously in this thread, it will only catch what it knows about so keep it updated. It should also be able to warn you of known suspicious links if you click on them.
Try to remember to hover your cursor over hyperlinks so your browser displays the URL, usually in the bottom left of the screen. If you think it’s suspicious, don’t click it. However that doesn’t work with mobile devices. And there is malware targeted at mobile devices, especially Andriod OS.
Remember that software can’t stop you from clicking on a link.
Simply deleting files or folders may not get rid of an infection and you run the risk of deleting something you shouldn’t. Most nasty malware writes itself into the OS registry and is self-replicating so it may reappear anyway. Going back to the latest restore point prior to infection may get rid of it. But you may lose some data. If that fails, you need a pro.
Never open spam or any email that looks hinky. Always look at the originating address though sometime that can be spoofed.
Get a portable hard drive and back up to that. Then unplug it. Data is only safe if it is offline.
The web has a dark underbelly and can be a bad place. Resign yourself to the fact that even if you’re careful, eventually you’ll catch something. I’m a pro and I got hit with ransomware once because I wasn’t paying attention. That was a pain to get rid of.
I back up to drives made by Clickfree. They are external drives that you plug in and they run a backup. They cost around $120-150 each. I gather that there are other brands of external drives that need to be set up before they are put into use. Apparently Clickfree brand is based on the idea that no setup is needed. The last thing I want is to go through is an exhaustive, problematic, incomprehensible rigamarole to put a new external drive into use.
However, for as easy as it is to put data onto a Clickfree drive, getting data off of it in case of losing data from the computer is indeed a bunch of incomprehensi
There’s only one way to insure that your vital info will not be stolen or hacked; don’t use your computer for online banking or anything else which will affect you adversely. Go to your bank and do your business directly with a bank official, face to face. I was on an entertainment site last week, and suddenly a “warning” came up on my computer, saying my computer was compromised, listing a 1-800 number which would enable them to “fix” my computer. I’d already been advised by my computer expert that I’d be unable to use my computer; I simply manually shut it off. When I turned it on later, all was well; Windows went through a restart automatically. Junior Yardmaster
Tried the windows 10 updateon HP machine but because of an apparent corrupt seegment when tried to log back on !@#$%^&*(@#$%^&":P><).
Have spent all weekend trying to geet puter back running. Is going to take a complete reboot back to factory settings. Have been on phone over 6 hours already. and not counting data dumps, and restorations. UGH !