Guide to Get Rid of Malware
What is a Malware?
Malware means malicious software. The sole purpose of these software is to damage your computer without your knowledge. Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware, crimeware and other malicious and unwanted software. Malware linger in your computer even after a thorough anti-malware scan to hack your password, banking and personal details.
There are many unsolicited websites that prompt you that your computer has been infected by virus. After this warning, it prompts you to install a software to get rid of the virus. Gulible victims fall prey to it and the computer is infected all kinds of virus. Such programs are called Scareware. Here are some of the scareware programs that are consistently infecting computers till date:
- Antivirus’09
- Personal Antivirus
- WinDefender 2008
- P Antispyware 09
- WinPC Antivirus
- RapidAntivirus
- WinAntivirus
- XP Antivirus
- DriveCleaner
The programmers who have made these malware have developed it in such a way that it can easily go undetected by anti-malware programs.
Here’s a guide to remove malware from your computer:
BACKUP YOUR DATA
You can create a disk image of your hard-disk to take a backup. You may also copy and paste the data into an external storage hard drive. If the data is less, you can simple make a backup of it on a DVD or a USB flash drive (pen drive).
RUN ANTI-MALWARE IN SAFE MODE
When you start Windows normally, there are many applications that are launched at the start-up automatically. If your computer is infected with malware, then there is 100% chance of viruses posing as start-up programs. Hence, it is not advisable to start windows normally to do a scan with your anti-malware program.
To do a anti-malware scan, restart your system and go into Safe-Mode. Here are steps to launch Safe-Mode. Once you are in Safe-mode, you can do anti-malware scan to remove malware from your system. Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, Avira Antivirus and Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool are some of the good anti-malware programs you can make use of.
Download different anti-malware and run them. In case one anti-malware program fails to detect a malware, the others would detect it. Doing this will help you in removing all malware from your system.
MAKE YOUR HARD DISK NON-BOOTABLE
It would also be a good idea if you make your hard drive non-bootable one and connect it a different computer before doing a scan your computer for malware. After you have successfully removed the malware, you can put the hard disk to the original system. Next thing you can do is run a anti-rootkit software. Like anti-malware, running 3-4 anti-rootkit scanners will help in cleaning your system thoroughly from malware.
CLEAN INSTALLATION OF WINDOWS
Even after anti-malware scan, your computer may be still remain infected with malware. In such a case, you may go for clean installation of Windows. After this, you can copy back your data from data backup.
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Posted by Anvin on 22nd April, 2009
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