Is Your Computer Infected by a Virus?

A computer virus is a piece of malicious software. It can be any software that is made with the intention to destroy or retrieve the data available on your computer. It may also intend to keep your system busy so that it can not function properly. It becomes absolutely necessary that your system remains free of all Viruses.

A computer infected with a virus is like a person affected by a disease.

Early diagnosis can save you lot of trouble. A late detection generally causes you loss of your important data.

How do you know that your computer is infected by a virus?

It will become slow. So stay alert of the speed at which your tasks are being performed. The processing power of your system is something that every virus attacks.

Second symptom is when some files are corrupted when there was no reason for the same. Then your drive does not open when you double click on it. If you right click and open it, it opens normally.

Sometimes, the system restarts automatically and the frequency keeps increasing. For example, a message will simply pop-up saying that the computer will shut down in one minute. This is the deed of a famous virus called W32.Blaster.Worms.

Now, the simplest thing to do to deal with viruses is to install anti-virus software in your computer system. An updated and smart anti-virus catches any virus that intrudes into your system. It keeps an eye on the behavior of the system and detects a virus by observing any unusual behaviors. By using an anti-virus, you will be informed immediately and can take prompt action against it, saving you of lot of trouble later.

Virus makers are not that naive. Viruses have been created that shut down the anti-virus program as soon as they enter the system, before being detected. Of course, some viruses are trained enough to mislead the anti-virus program by appearing to be authenticated. It is best to spare a few seconds everyday to have a look at your task manager yourself. You can open it by first pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and then pressing on the task manager button. Have a look at what programs are running and how much CPU memory they are using. A percentage more than 50 is a sign of alarm.

Also watch out for any unknown executable file. Generally, a virus would pick up a name of any file that you have in your system and name it by that name. If the original file is mail.txt, it will name itself mail.exe to look familiar. Get rid of any such files as soon as possible.