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Just what is a virus or spyware?
What can I expect if I have one?
If your PC is making you crazy lately with a non-stop barrage of notifications and popups. A thousand different programs trying to get you to purchase or install them; or maybe a man from India is calling you telling you about something he found on your computer. Well, you probably just have some Spyware like most people. You might have a Virus or some other Malware. If you wondering what the Term Malware is. It just describes a piece of malicious software then gets installed to do damage to computers, clients and servers. Luckily for you, we clean out all of those, were like a penicillin shot for your PC. Computers are kind of like a human body in that they get a virus and get sick which causes them to slow down or crash. Viruses and malware do a couple of things that aren’t so nice like send off your personal data or install key-logging software to catch your bank passwords. Sometimes its what’s called Ransomware which does pretty much what the name suggests and holds your files for ransom usually $ 1500.00. If they don’t get the money in a few days they start killing your files one by one.
OMG, I think I’m infected!
How could this happen?
I don’t frequent adult sites or hacker sites and I don’t even know what the Dark Web is so how did I get infected. The short answer is “The Internet”. Yep, that’s it in a nutshell. If you have access to the Internet it’s just a matter of time. Google reported that it finds 300,000 websites every day that are infected with one sort of virus or another so if you stumble upon one of those infected sites and your antivirus isn’t up to snuff then you too could be the proud owner of a shiny new virus to spread to all your friends and family.
Now that you know what it is and what it does, how do you avoid it? Well avoiding it is not so easy because as I mentioned before lots of websites are already infected but there are a few steps you can take.
- Try not to download Free software. If it’s something you really need, make sure when you install it you’re only installing the software you want. There is a reason it’s free, that’s because they’re bundled with 10 other pieces of junk software which are going to try to load. That’s the bad stuff.
- Free Movie sites are guaranteed to get you infected.
- When going to a website if a notification pops up asking you to Allow or Block always hit Block.
- Remember “Everything is a scam.”
- If someone calls you and says they found a virus or spyware on your computer, It’s a scam. If they say they’re from Microsoft, it’s a scam. If they say they’re from the IRS, it’s a scam. Never give out your personal information period! Never let them into your computer.
- If someone sends you an email and you don’t know who they are, delete it, don’t start clicking on links.
There are plenty of fake virus alert pages on the internet. The one above is the FBI MoneyPak virus alert. These try to scare you into paying a “fine” with untraceable funds such as bitcoin, target or k-mart cards, even Apple and Game Stop cards. But they are totally fake.
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So now you know Virus’ and Spyware are bad and no good can come from them. Windows 10 has a pretty good antivirus and Firewall built-in called Windows Defender that’s Included with the purchase of Windows 10 but if you want something that’s a bit better I personally use eset software Nod 32 Internet Security which can be purchased at https://www.eset.com I have no affiliation with them nor do I get any incentives or kickbacks from them, I just like their software and think it does a really good job.
Now, this article obviously doesn’t cover and break down every type of Malware, which are numerous. It’s just intended to give the home user a quick summary.