In this article we are going to illustrate how you can go about removing viruses and malware from your computer and how you can devise a contingency plan that would protect you from future virus and malware attacks.
Viruses and malware are the greatest threat to one of the most valuable concepts of our modern life. The concept is based on the idea of collecting, analyzing, processing and preserving data in digital format. To find out what havoc a virus or malware program can wreck you do not need to be an IT specialist or tech guy, almost everybody in today’s world has experienced the gruesome feeling of having a computer infected and losing valuable data. It’s so ironic to see the war between good and evil is no more limited to our substantial world, with the advent of viruses and malware the horizons of this conflict has overwhelmed the digital world of computers.
Imagine a business man preparing a report about his newest business venture, or an office worker doing his daily work, or a student working on an assignment or a computer developer doing some project- and suddenly their computer stops responding and fails to reboot, a possible outcome is that they have been victim to a virus or malware attack and have lost all their data, rendering their tireless efforts useless within a fraction of a second. These incidents have become extremely common and are an undeniable reality now. So we must always keep a backup of sensitive data. Below are some valuable tips that would help you in removing viruses and malware from your computer.
The first step in removing viruses and malware is to detect it, just like the old saying " a problem understood is half solved." Thanks to the modern computer security programs like antivirus software, they always do this job for you. Antivirus software antivirus programs are specially designed software that is used to detect, block and remove malicious programs that could harm your computer and data. These malicious programs include viruses, Trojans, spyware, adware, rootkits and worms. These programs are engineered to disrupt the normal functionality of the computer and force it to act in a way not facilitated by the legal owner or administrator of the computer. Some of the malicious programs like viruses harm your operating system, while others like spywares are designed to get valuable information from your computer. These programs are very hard to detect and remove as they work in stealth mode. An antivirus program can be considered as the remedy or precautionary measure against these threats. Antivirus software use a variety of different strategies to detect, block and remove malicious programs. Some of the most commonly used strategies are listed below:
· Signature based detection
· Heuristics
· Rootkit detection
As discussed earlier your first priority must be to stop the virus of malicious program from entering in your system, and the best method to do so is to install an antivirus program and keep it updated. However if your failed to install one on time and the virus is already inside your storage facilities, you may take the following steps to minimize the damage.
1. Do not open or try to open the files, folders or drive that have been infected with a malware or virus.
2. Immediately install good antivirus software or, and do a thorough scan of your storage.
3. Allow the antivirus program to remove the virus for you, since removing it manually is almost impossible and requires expert level technical skills and knowledge – which the antivirus program has.
4. The antivirus program should usually give you three options after detecting a virus or malware, these options normally are Delete, Quarantine and Ignore. Take appropriate action against the malware and always try to avoid the ignore option.
5. In the future be careful while using removable storage media devices and try not to browse websites that have been defined as a potential threat to your computer.