At M&H Consulting, we have noticed an increasing trend of virus infections that, after removal, come back and re-infect the computer after a time of normal use. In the past this has certainly been possible, however it was much less common than it is in the present. What should one expect in a situation like this?
A little background in how the more common viruses operate might shed a little light on the subject. Most viruses come into the computer using what is called a Trojan horse. As the term implies, it is a small program that when running opens a backdoor into your computer for a hacker or their automated program to remotely be able to compromise the system. This can mean controlling the computer, stealing critical system information, and being able to download and run programs. The longer a Trojan horse is active on a computer, the larger the infection tends to be, which translates to more virus and malware files and programs running. This also makes it more difficult to remove the malware from the computer, if it is even possible in a reasonable amount of time.
A typical scenario where this might apply would be when a user unknowingly gets infected with a virus. This could come from an infected e-mail attachment, an infected website, even from an infected add-on from a secure website- those adds are typically outsourced to third party vendors who may or may not be constantly vigilant on their content. They now may get pop-ups when going to websites, pop-up windows that might look innocent but are in fact infecting the computer with additional rogue programs (such as Antivirus 2012 or Malware 2012 -and want to charge you to remove the software they loaded in the first place!) They will often get false readings in these pop up windows that say their system is infected with thousands of virus and malware files when in fact they are not, and by following the prompts get infected.
We have seen that typically a virus removal can take 2-3 hours (sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on the severity of the infection). Industry respected removal tools are typically used and one can be reasonably certain the infection will not come back; however, this cannot be guaranteed. The people who write these viruses and Trojan horses are quite crafty- they have developed ways of embedding their programs into the actual operating system so that anything short of a full format and reinstallation of windows will not work. Also, we find that for serious infections, it makes more sense to just format and re-install after spending a little time removing the virus. It does not make economic sense to spend 5 to 6 hours removing an infection that is not guaranteed to be completely clean when we can spend a little less time (and our client’s money) to fully re-install windows and transfer any data back onto the computer, and guarantee removal.
A good practice for any individual is to periodically update and run anti malware utilities. M&H Consulting does this every visit for clients who are enrolled in our Tech for a Day maintenance program, as part of proactively detecting and preventing malware infections.Users are encouraged to do this with their home computers as well.
For any further information or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 866-964-8324, or e-mail us at support@mhconsults. com.
Categorised in: Computer Support, hacking, malware