DATA-IN-FORMATION
Computer Services, LLC
P.O. Box 93
Monticello, UT 84535
1.435.587 DATA (3282)
1.866.708.DATA (3282)
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. You can find out more about Malware from Wikipedia.
A lot of our support calls now resolve around malware. The best defense is just knowing what to look for. Many times malware will just appear as a fake security alert stating that you have many viruses on your computer and that you should run a scan by 'clicking' somewhere on the warning pop-up window. When you do so, it actually infects your computer, then over time starts downloading other things that you do not want on your computer, or sending your information out. The best advice is to 'kill' the program from the Task Manager. To do this, just right click on your taskbar, select Task Manager, then on the Processes tab, find the offending window, select it and click End Process.
Should you still feel that you have been infected, then most of the time these infections can be easily prevented and/or removed by following these easy steps:
- Download Malware Bytes and run a scan. You can find the download in our Recommendations section. This is a free application and will identify and remove almost anything.
- After you run Malware Bytes and remove existing infections, download and run Microsoft Security Essentials from our Recommendations section. This is also a free application from Microsoft for users of valid operating systems. It outperforms and detects better than many commercial versions of security software.
- Consider upgrading to Windows 7. Windows 7 has the latest security features built into Windows, many of which stop today's malware infections. Windows 7 has also shown to be more secure than other operating systems.
We hope that this has been helpful. You can perform the recommended solutions yourself, or you can save time and money by using our flat rate service to have all of the above services performed with the peace of mind that it is done correctly. Contact us today to have a well tuned and secure computer.
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