- Does your computer run slow?
- Do advertisements appear on your screen by themselves?
- Does your computer suddenly behave differently than it used to?
You may have one or more pieces of malware running on your computer. These are programs that cause
undesirable / unwanted behavior in your computer and can be very difficult to remove. They can even damage
your computer and, in rare cases, cause permanent damage to your computer’s hardware. Some malware can
require reformatting the hard drive in order to get rid of it.
How did I get infected with malware?
Usually, infections are from one of 4 primary sources.
- Email / Instant Messenger
- This is the way most worms propagate.
- Most worms spoof the return address with an address
harvested from the infected computer’s address book, so an email can appear to come from a
friend, but really be coming from another computer whose user has both your address and your
friend’s address in his address book.
- Running a Trojan / infected file
- If you do not know the origin of a file, you should not open it.
- Installing “free” software
- This is where most adware and
scumware come from.
- You should think carefully about why this software is free before installing it.
- Does this program tie into a commercially available program written by the same
company like Adobe Reader or Shockwave plugin?
- Is this an open source program like Linux or OpenOffice.org?
- Is this program supported by voluntary payments? (how does the programmer get paid
for his work?)
- If none of the above apply, the program is probably not safe to install.
- Visiting an infected web site
- There are a few malicious web sites out there designed to install malware on your computer.
- Gaming and porn sites frequently install malware on your computer.
- The “Code Red” worm was an example of complex malware
that used this as one of its methods to spread from computer to computer.
My computer is infected, how do I clean the infection from my system?
- Try removing the infection with your antivirus software
- Seek professional assistance from Unified System, Inc.
- We have tools and techniques available to us that the average person does not, which gives us
the ability to repair the system without reformatting in many cases.
- Because of the nature of malware, the operating system may be damaged beyond reasonable
repair and may need to be reinstalled. Therefore we ask that you:
- Have your System Restore CD available
- Have a list of your files which will need to be preserved
- Have your software installation files / CDs and installation keys available.
- Reformat your hard drive and reinstall your applications
While prevention is the best cure, Unified System, Inc. can help with the removal of
malware from your system. Call us at 781-276-4567 and we can have a tech at your house or place of
business to take care of your malware problems. For reduced rates, you can drop off your pc at our office for
repair by a qualified technician.
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