Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Viruses

Now this blog would be HUGE if I indeed posted everything that could be posted so instead I'll just talk about a little bit today and create a new post for the rest at a later date!

SOOO =P

A virus is a program or code which makes your computer do something bad. That is something which hurts your computer that you don't want or that hurts some one Else's computer ect. Alot of times you can get viruses from websites that are less than reputable or from well known sites which have ads that contain malware code on them (Malware is just another name for bad code or programs) Malware includes things like spyware and viruses and trojans and stuff...

Now this post focuses on some quick actions to take should you suspect a virus is attacking your pc. HOPEFULLY you have some sort of anti virus running on your machine. But even still a virus can some times KILL your anti virus program... nothing is full proof and so that might be the case. If you find yourself browsing a website and your computer starts freaking out or things start shutting down and restarting, that is a tell tale tail sign of a virus or malware... During this time of the viruses initial attack, timing is vital and a quick response may save your computer. If you are not sure of whats going on or what to do but you suspect virus activity the best thing for you is to shut your computer down MANUALLY... that is you HOLD THE POWER BUTTON IN UNTIL THE COMPUTER SHUTS DOWN and you can no longer hear the fans spinning or the computer making noise... One thing is for sure if a virus is attempting to break into your computer, it cant do it if the computer is off =P Please note turning off the computer by holding the power button on your tower will take a few seconds to actually turn it off.

Where you go from here is tricky... one thing to keep in mind if you suspect a virus has taken over is that at any time the computer is on the virus is probably working.... so try to keep the computer off as much as possible and only turn it on to attempt to fix it. You may wish to restart your computer under safemode (windows operating systems only) safemode is a special way to start your computer which tells it to only start up the most basic programs your computer needs to function. Safemode can often times inhibit a viruses ability to function as well, although there is no guarantee of that. To start your computer in safemode, simply turn the power back on and continually press the "f8" key on your keyboard... NOT the "f" and the "8" keys, but the key that has both the letter "f" and "8" on it....Usually found at the top of the keyboard... after a while of pressing this key repeatedly you will see a black screen with white letters talking about how you would like to start up the windows operating system... Use the arrows on your keyboard to scroll to safemode and press enter. You may then be asked to choose which operating system you wish to start in safemode (most likely only one option in the list.. so select that and press enter). you will then see a list of files fly by pretty fast on the screen and then eventually windows with safemode will come up... You will be prompted to continue running in safemode or to attempt to preform a system restore... The one you want is continue running in safemode.

Safemode is a way to work on your computer relatively safe from risk of further infection. What you do after you are in safemode is entirely up to you. But if you have an anti virus program running you may want to preform a scan (most anti virus programs don't like scanning in safemode, but you don't exactly have a choice at this point....)

one other thing If you are familiar already with system restore, you may be tempted to try that from safemode. This is a realistic possibility but i warn you that alot of viruses attempt to infect system restore files as well. So there is a chance that when you preform a restoration you will restore the virus as well....

3 comments:

  1. i never had any similar problems to this.
    using windows XP is tha sh1t!

    ReplyDelete
  2. nice tips i know my cousin believe that system restore solves everything even when hes infected by a trojan

    ReplyDelete