Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Cleaning an Infected Computer



Cleaning an Infected Computer


Keeping Digital World Secure from Computer Virus - Symptoms, Treatment and Prevention

Dear Readers, as you may already know about the existence of threats to our digital life such as Viruses, Worms, Trojans and/or other malwares. In this post, well discuss on removing these threats on both environments i.e. Normal and Dangerous (Heavily Infected Systems). First of all, well start with the basics on how to recognize a PC Infection that Whether a PC is infected or not although the very first signs of PC infection may be transparent to both the user and the OS i.e. You may not know the difference by any percent whether your system is infected or not but still there may be infection running on your system without your knowledge.

Q: How to Identify whether PC is Infected or Not?
There are several ways you can recognize whether your PC is infected or not.
  1. Start Task Manager>Processes>Check Show Processes from all users. If you find any processes running unusual with odd looking names like or similar to jqlysc.exe, svrexe.exe, qrckm.exe, DIIHOST.EXE, XPLORER.EXE etc and any .pif files or programs running, then youre system is 100% infected.
  2. Right Click on each of your Local Drives, if the first menu item is AutoPlay or AutoRun, then your system as well as root of that drive is infected...
  3. Open Folder Options>Enable View Hidden Files and Folders, Uncheck Hide Protected System Files, Uncheck Hide Extensions for Known File Types. Open any of your drive and see if there are any unusual hidden files and folders. (Note: Dont double click to open your drives, this will infect your system immediately if infection is present in your system... Always type drive letter followed by colon in My Computers or Explorers address bar eg. Type C: for opening C drive of your system.)
  4. BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) occurs more often even if you have latest and stable drivers for your hardware and you havent made any recent hardware modifications such as Adding New Hardware (USB Sticks and/or Removable Media including Human Interference Devices such as Keyboard/Mouse and other Plug n Play Devices are an exception to this case)
  5. Your PC Wont Boot into Safe Mode. Task Manager, Registry Editor, Msconfig and other Utilities disabled.
  6. Foul and/or threatening messages being displayed on your PC etc.
Treatment of Virus (Cleaning Process)
  1. The very first step is to get disconnected from internet and restart your computer in safe mode by rapidly tapping F8 function key while your system is about to load Windows.
  2. In Safe Mode, Open RUN command either from Start Menu or by pressing Windows logo button on keyboard + R key from keyboard.
  3. Type in " msconfig ". This will open Microsoft configuration utility.
  4. Point toward start-up options and disable any unknown or all entries, that you may find infectious.
  5. Now go to control panel > folder options> view option> uncheck hide protecting operating system files, hide extensions for known file types etc.
  6. Now open your explorer either via running Windows explorer or double clicking my computer icon and Right click on your system drive usually C: and check whether there is Any option related to AutoRun, AUTORun, AuToPlAY, AuToPlAY etc any thing similar to this, then DO NOT DOUBLE CLICK ON ANY DRIVES TO OPEN THEM IF SUCH MESSAGE EXISTS BECAUSE THE VIRUS/TROJAN/WORM OR ANY OTHER MALICIOUS FILE WILL THEN AUTOMATICALLY BE TRIGGERED AND INFECT YOUR SYSTEM
  7. Open your Windows Task Manager. If any virus has disabled your task manager, try finding alternative of task manager and disable any suspicious processes except the processes that are marked System or Local Service and Download ComboFix from here or from Mediafire or from its official webpage (Bleeping Computer) and Run with Administrator Privileges by Right Clicking the downloaded file and selecting Run as Administrator (Windows Vista/7/8) and Let it perform the Scan. (DO NOT SCAN WITH YOUR ANTIVIRUS AS IT MAY ALREADY HAVE BEEN HEAVILY INFECTED FOR EITHER NOT FINDING INFECTIONS OR INFECTING FILES WHILE SCANNING..)
  8. Download Additional Malware/Spyware detection tool such as MalwareBytes Anti-Malware here http://www.malwarebytes.org/ or any other.. and Scan Your System.
  9. If possible, Download Antivirus Rescue Disks from Antivirus Vendors such as Avira (Recommended), Kaspersky (Recommended), Norton, AVG etc. and Create a Bootable USB Stick or CD/DVD Disk and Scan your System from Boot... If your system is heavily infected, then thoroughly scan your system and delete any infected files found because those files will only spread infection and cannot be recovered.. (Please Note, this process may render your System Unstable or Even Unbootable.. Follow this Process only if you already have minded up to Install a Fresh OS)
  10. If everything else fails, The next Best thing you can do is Install a Fresh Operating System and Follow Step no. 9 above... This ensures you that if you Install Fresh OS, itll not get Corrupted or Infected just after Installation although it may get infected if Infection is Still Residing on your system. If above step is followed, your system will not be getting Infected until you receive infection from a medium such as USB Drives or files downloaded from Internet...
Prevention:

There isnt any 100% developed way to Completely Protect your Computer from Viruses and/or other malware because of the changing nature and way of infecting and creation of viruses and/or other malware every few seconds.. Still you can follow these precautions to lessen the chances of your system getting Infected:
  1. After you have Installed Fresh Operating System or Bought a New System Pre-Installed with OS, Always Install a good Antivirus Software from known developers at first such as Avira, Kaspersky, Avast, Norton, Quick Heal, AVG, Bitdefender etc. You dont always need a Paid or Full Version Software although it adds to the Security enhancement and added features but Still you can keep pace with Free Antivirus at First...
  2. Install an Anti Spyware or Anti Malware for added Security Layer such as MalwareBytes Anti Malware or SpyBot - Search & Destroy or any of your favorite AntiMalware Software..
  3. Always keep or at least try to keep your Anti Virus and Anti Malware upto date...
  4. Use Sandboxie or your favorite Sandbox software to test drive software or files you download straight from Internet such as using Sandboxed browser.
  5. Dont double click to open USB Sticks/Pen Drives/Removable drives including CD/DVDs to explore its contents.. Open using address bar by typing C: for C drive or H: for H drive...
Important Tips: 
Accidently Formatted your Hard Drive or Partition or Deleted Files - Recover them Go here..
Task Manager Disabled by Your Administrator - Fix this Problem here..
Registry Editor Disabled by Your Administrator - Fix this Problem here..






Tags: how to clean infected computer, remove infection, clean virus, trojans, spyware, worm, pc infection

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