Right, so, what am I going to talk about? Yup, that's right, something I'm sure many of you have expierienced atleast once; Computer viruses. The evil programs that take your computer and turn it either into something about as useful and as entertaining as a brick, or fill it with more holes than swiss cheese.
I am going to focus on a few relatively easy general fixes and preventative measures, rather than the history of malicious programming, because that, in itself, is very interesting, and is something I have on my little list of posts to write
Step Zero - Prevention
First of all, as the saying goes, prevention is better than the cure, and nowhere is this more true than in the realm of computer, as I have learnt the hard way. So, instead of being forced to run through these steps, which are boring as all hell and, completely A-Grade avoidable, just keep your antivirus up to date. I know that is continually beaten into your head by everyone who talks about computers, but please, just do it, it'll save you alot of worry, and if you are unlucky enough to be hit by a bad virus, a lot of money to. Oh, and if you're like me, far to busy to update your anti-virus manually, get one that does it automatically, like Kapersky, or, even better, get one built into your MoBo, though that may be a little OTT for casual computer users.
Step One - Diagnosis
The first step to knowing what to do to your computer, is knowing what the hell is up with it. There are 3 types of malicious program that I am going to cover here, and I don't claim to be covering all of them, though feel free to mention the ones I mentioned.
1) Adware - This stuff will flash up all sorts of irritating warnings, telling that your computer is completely riddled with infections galore, and try to trick you into buying a bogus antivius program. This stuff is often really easy to spot, but much harder to get rid of.
2) Actual Viruses - These things will, unlike Adware or Worms, just brick your computer completely, after replicating in some way. If this happens, I'd advise going to your local computer store and seeing what they can do, as it is unlikely that anything except specialist help or guides for that particular virus will help. However, it is advisable that you run these steps before hand, if at all possible, if just to be sure.
3) Spyware/Worms - These types of programs operate invisibly, and are typically used in data mining operations, where they log your key presses and steal information such as passwords or credit card numbers. Most antivirus softwares will have a "Full Scan" option, which can find and destroy such programs, and whilst it is not infaliable, it is the best you can do, apart from using your common sense. Running these steps, should however, should kill off most Spyware, though if you think your passwords have been stolen, it may be a good idea to contact
Step 2 - Start Windows in Safe Mode (With Networking)
To do this, simply restart your computer, and when the screen listing all your computers hardware pops up (The black and white screen that shows up about 2-3 seconds in for the unaware), keep pressing F8, until you are presented with the advanced boot options screen. Select "Safe Mode with Networking" (Depending on your system you may be forced to use the arrow keys instead of the mouse here) and watch as your computer boots in Safe Mode, which will help to reduce the impacts of the virus on the OS.
Step 3 - The Right Tools For The Job
Now we must end the processes that belong to any worms, adwares or viral infections, so that they do not interfere with the cleaning procedure. To do this, please download RKill to your desktop from the following link.RKill Download Link - (Download page will open in a new tab or browser window.)
When at the download page, click on the Download Now button labeled iExplore.exe download link. When you are prompted where to save it, please save it on your desktop.If you are unable to connect to the site to download RKill, please go back and do steps 3-6 again and make sure the infection has not reenabled the proxy settings. You may have to do this quite a few times before you can get RKill downloaded. If you still cannot download the RKill program on the infected computer, you should download it to a clean computer and copy it to the infected one via a USB flash drive or CDROM.
Once it is downloaded, double-click on the iExplore.exe icon in order to automatically attempt to stop any processes associated with Adware and other Rogue programs. Please be patient while the program looks for various malware programs and ends them. When it has finished, the black window will automatically close and you can continue with the next step. If you get a message that RKill is an infection, do not be concerned. This message is just a fake warning given by certain Adwares and Viral infections when it terminates programs that may potentially remove it. If you run into these infections warnings that close RKill, a trick is to leave the warning on the screen and then run RKill again. By not closing the warning, this typically will allow you to bypass the malware trying to protect itself so that RKill can terminate any Rouge programs . So, please try running RKill until the malware is no longer running. You will then be able to proceed with the rest of the guide.
Do not reboot your computer after running RKill as the malware programs will start again.
If you continue having problems running RKill, you can download the other renamed versions of RKill from the RKill download page. Both of these files are renamed copies of RKill, which you can try instead. Please note that the download page will open in a new browser window or tab.
Now you should download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, or MBAM, from the following location and save it to your desktop:
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Download Link (Download page will open in a new window)
Step Four - Search And Destroy
Once downloaded, close all programs and windows on your computer, including this one.
Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings, and when the program has finished installing, make sure you leave both the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware checked. Then click on the Finish button. If MalwareBytes' prompts you to reboot, please do not do so.
MBAM will now automatically start and you will see a message stating that you should update the program before performing a scan. As MBAM will automatically update itself after the install, you can press the OK button to close that box and you will now be at the main program.
On the Scanner tab (It is usually opened on launch, but if not, it is the top left tab), make sure the the Perform full scan option is selected and then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for any known malicous files.
MBAM will now start scanning your computer for malware. This process can take quite a while, so I suggest you go and do something else and periodically check on the status of the scan.
After the scan is finished, it will prompt you to choose to remove the located programs. Check all of the boxes, and click remove.
And, there you go, job done! Tell me what you think of this guide!
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