How to Remove Malware Tips

Malware is an abbreviated term that stands for “malicious software.” This malicious software is designed for the purpose of gaining access to your computer and often damage a computer without the owner knowing.

What is Malware?

There are various types of malware. These can include:

• Spyware
• Keyloggers
• True viruses
• Worms
• or any type of malicious code that infiltrates a computer.

Malware creation has become popular in recent times due to the the lure of money that can be made through organized Internet crime.   Malware originally existed as experiments and pranks, but eventually led to vandalism and destruction of targeted machines.  Today, malware is often created for profit through forced (adware) advertising, stealing sensitive information (spyware), email spamming via infected computers, or to extort money (ransomware).

Various factors make computers more vulnerable to malware attacks, including defects in the operating system design, lack of updates and permissions, and use of popular operating systems like Windows OS (due to its popularity, it gets the most malware written for it). The best protection from malware continues to be the usual advice: be careful about what email attachments you open, be cautious when surfing and stay away from suspicious websites, install, maintain and keep up to date, a quality antivirus program, and most importantly, keep frequent backups in case of catastrophe.

Tips for Spotting Malware

1. Computer starts acting up and stops acting unusual (strange ads and pop-ups and block you from doing things)
2. Changes to your browser and unable to make changes to your homepage
3. Slow computer

Prevention and Early Detection

There are various tools for malware removal, but one of the most recommended ways to remove malware on a Windows computer is to do a system restore immediately after catching it.

While sometimes it may be too late to do a system restore, ultimately the cleanest way, and hopefully you had made an image and backup, is to restore your computer from your latest backup image.

How to Remove Malware

For Windows users, Microsoft offers a malware software removal tool, and Google offers results to various answers on how to remove specific malware from your computer.  While many of these sites may also promote their own software for removing malware, which are not always 100% and may often do more harm than good, be cautious at the instructions you come across.  malwarefixguide.com offers some useful information and tools.  As traces of malware can always linger, restoring from a legitimate image and backup will often be your cleanest solution.

Originally posted 2016-05-03 23:47:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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