My computer has a virus - what do I do?

So your computer has a virus?

• Step 1: Don't panic - people tend to think less clearly if they panic, so this my first advice to you. Take a deep breath and read on.


• Step 2: Scan you computer. Since you are reading this small guide on removing a computer virus my guess is that you are not familiar with this sort of thing and you don't want to get into any technical and messy details. Therefor we will rely on a good programm to take care of things for us. You migh have seen several or even many ads in odd places on the web that say something like "Click here to scan your PC". Well, don't ever do that! Lots of fake anti virus software is all over the internet and it is dangerous to install it. Instead visit a well known provider of such programs like Trend Micro, ESET or Symantec to name a few. Download their software (sometimes there are free trials) and have it scan your computer including external hard drives, USB memory sticks and cards.


• Step 3: Remove the virus(es). This should be easy too. Either during the scan or immediately after it is complete, the program might prompt you for what to do with any viruses it may have found. It could also be set to simply handle it all automatically, but if not you now want to let the program delete anything it has found. Allthough some of the files it has found may be harmless like most cookies I would advise you to delete everything - just in case. The program may also tell you that some threats could not be deleted but only "quarenteened" - simply accept it.


• Step 4: Optional reports. Some programs may ask your permission to send suspicious files back for analysis. They sometimes do this if they come across a piece of software that exhibits behavior that looks like a virus but it has yet to be identified as one. If you allow it you may be helping in recognizing new viruses in the future.

By now you are all done and your computer is clean. However, in some cases it is not possible to perform the above steps for one or more reasons:

• Your web browser wont allow you to access known sites where you can download security software. This is because some sneaky viruses deliberately prevent it! The only thing you can do is to try different websites to see if you are lucky and find one that works and/or try with different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) If nothing works I would resort to a complete re-format of my hard drive and re-instll Windows and everything else from scratch. Of cause you could also take your computer to a professional company that can clean it for you, but that would cost some money.


• The computer is completely taken over by malware. Some people don't pay attention to the problem until it has gone out of hand and many viruses open up for more viruses to get installed and as they accumulate the computer eventually either gets so slow or so unstable, that any attempt to clean it is almost impossible. Again the only option is a complete re-install of everything.

If you are forced to completely re-install everything i strongly advise you to unplug your network cable or turn of your wireless router if that is how you connect to the web. The reason for this is that some viruses may have recorded your IP address and a server somewhere in the world will attempt to re-infect your computer the minute Windows boots up again - believe me, I have been there! Get a security program on a CD and install everything before connecting to the internet again. After connecting you should immediately let Windows and your security program update themselves. Wait for it to finish before doing anything else.

And that's it :-)