To the typical technical user who has grown up using computers their entire life its usually easy to tell if they have a virus or trojan on their PC. But to some novice users it can be a bit difficult to determine if their is a virus on your machine. Infections today fall into two broad categories. 1. loud and annoying or 2. stealthy and silent. If you have an annoying infection its always in your face when you are trying to use your PC. That includes annoying pop up windows, advertising banners, and extortion attempts where the malware is trying to trick you into paying for something. This includes messages that inform you that you are infected with multiple viruses (oh, the irony) and that if you activate your security software you will be able to remove these viruses. The end user clicks “Activate” and shockingly enough, your license for the virus removal has expired. Well that’s no problem; you are then redirected to their secure payment page so you can quickly give them your credit card information and get rid of these pesky viruses. So lets take a look at what some of these images look like so you can be well aware of what to look for.
In this case after the virus is nice enough to infect your machine it asks you to reboot so it can properly dig its hooks into your operating system making it more difficult for you to remove.
Virus Asking for a Reboot
Then shortly after your reboot you will be informed that a bunch of viruses were found.
Looks very legitimate
Of course you are given the option to “remove all threats now” or stay unprotected.
If you choose to continue unprotected you will constantly be nagged so eventually you give up and pay the ransom
Finally if you are willing to admit defeat then you will be redirected to the malware writer’s page to make payment.
Make Payment
This is not representative of all viruses out there but follows the MO of most of the louder annoying viruses category we mentioned earlier. Check out our article on how to remove these types of infections. If you are lucky, the virus writer will let you download MalwareBytes and allow you to remove the virus. Sometimes this is easy to do but sometimes they make it extremely difficult by preventing you from getting to the MalwareBytes site or letting you download and install MalwareBytes but then blocking the update of the software which is critical in removing newer infections. This is where you may need some technical assistance from an expert like the ones at Boxaid.com. Give us a call at 866.999.3578 or visit our home page for more information www.boxaid.com
About George Dover
George Dover is one of the Microsoft Certified Technicians that works at BoxAid.com. He is the primary blog contributor and has helped thousands of customers calling into BoxAid on a daily basis. Connect with me on Google+
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