Tech Q&A - Security

[Kousbroek]

How should one respond to a virus on their computer?

..... buy a Mac ....

[Gilgamesh]

Do you even lift?

[Kousbroek]

Do you even lift?

????? *translation in progress* ???????

[Jackalope]

Do you even lift?

Misplaced meme is misplaced.

[Annik]

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How should one respond to a virus on their computer?

It depends on the virus and how your computer is set up.

If you have anti-virus software installed and it has detected the virus, it should have methods to either quarantine it or remove it completely. If not, I'd suggest installing better anti-virus software.

If you don't have anti-virus software installed, and the virus is preventing you from installing it (common with some viruses), then you will most likely have to connect your hard drive to another computer as an external disk and have the other computer to a scan to find the virus.

If the virus is causing a load of weird stuff to happen, or your system is loading slowly, turn the computer off immediately and do the same thing (scan the hard drive by using another computer). The less time the virus has to mess with your system, the better. As long as your OS isn't booted up, the virus shouldn't be able to do any damage, so connecting the hard drive to another computer as a secondary disk (not the main disk) will not put that computer at risk.

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How do you know if you should quarantine or delete something?

[Tiberius]

How do you know if you should quarantine or delete something?

Good question. It all depends on what type of malware you are dealing with, and also what options your virus scanner has. Some malware comes as standalone file which then runs on your system by exploiting vulnerabilities. This kind of file can be deleted without any system hiccups. However, some malware either replaces or infects system files themselves, so deleting such files would mess up the system itself.

In the latter case, if the anti-virus software has an option to "clean" the file in question, choose that. This should remove the malware from the infected file. If there is no "clean" option, choose instead to quarantine it. This places the file in a "safe" area monitored by the anti-virus software, which prevents malware from doing any damage, but lets the file do it's actual job fine.

[Annik]

How do you know if you should quarantine or delete something?

Good question. It all depends on what type of malware you are dealing with, and also what options your virus scanner has. Some malware comes as standalone file which then runs on your system by exploiting vulnerabilities. This kind of file can be deleted without any system hiccups. However, some malware either replaces or infects system files themselves, so deleting such files would mess up the system itself.

In the latter case, if the anti-virus software has an option to "clean" the file in question, choose that. This should remove the malware from the infected file. If there is no "clean" option, choose instead to quarantine it. This places the file in a "safe" area monitored by the anti-virus software, which prevents malware from doing any damage, but lets the file do it's actual job fine.

Thank you. I've always been fuzzy on that particular issue.