Windows Issues: Cleaning Up After the Security Breech

Once your computer is compromised your hard drive is in total danger, by being prepared for these events you can be ready for damage control which can mean the difference between total information loss and total salvaging of information. After preventative security has failed sometimes there is no hope for the information, this is a realization that must be made first, after this realization only the can you look into what needs to be done to salvage what you can. If you freak out before hand mistakes will be made and that can cost you your information. By approaching the situation calmly but quickly, information usually has a higher success rate of recovery.

The very first step in this process is to get your computer disconnected from the internet, this is not just simply closing your internet explorer, I mean you must physically disconnect it from the phone lines and internet connection to make sure that any outside access has stopped or prevented. This will keep any future malicious viruses or codes while your weakened by this infestation.

The next step is to pull out any form of storage media that is not your compromised computer, whether that be CD, DVD, USB, or network connection. Now create a folder to dump everything but put it all in one spot no sub folders just dump any and all information starting with the most valuable. You can re organize the information later once it has been cleaned and secured, just concentrate on getting that information backed up.

Now for the fun, try to run your anti virus and see if it can find any viruses, if able have it delete them, not quarantine, you must delete them. At this point to get a program to correctly locate and clean out any other viruses or security breeches you may have to reconnect to the internet long enough to download the other programs, of course do this while hiding behind your firewall and the anti virus that you do have. Once you have those newer programs install them and run them to attempt to clean out the system of all security problems. Unfortunately there are some viruses that link to Windows most important files. because these files are critical to Windows operation or so Windows thinks Windows and other programs ran withing Windows will refuse to delete them.

These cemented viruses and security issues pose a real threat, the only this to do at this point is to totally format you hard drive and reload your information. Once again make sure you have all important files that you wish to salvage or attempt to salvage saved on some for of media. Now with the Windows installation disk or the CD that came with your computer reboot the computer and run from the disk drive to start the re-installation program, when it asks to delete and rewrite hard drive information have it format and completely re write your operating system. It sometimes will give the option to restore, but this is not the back up restore so we need to leave this alone for now. Let the program rewrite your total hard drive and then get back online and install a new set of an anti virus program and firewall program. Now is the time to load in the backup disks that you hopefully have, but before loading and running them have the anti virus program, which should be totally up to date also, scan and clean each disk, file or folder. After loading the disks that you made, you need to re scan and check every file you were able to get off of the computer before the reinstall. After copying them onto your reinstalled computer make sure to run the file to make sure that it is not corrupted, sometimes even though there is no virus a file can still be corrupted, and then the file is really gone.

With these steps you should be able to either completely salvage your hard drive information or at least prevent total and complete information loss. While there are many factors that can come into play in the world of technology, all we can do is try and provide the most resistance to security breeches, hopefully when they do occur with some basic information you can turn around a total information loss.