Post by bunnymendelbaum on Aug 1, 2014 13:17:34 GMT -5
My computer has been running s l o w. I'm afraid I have a virus. I've run malware scans. First found Trojans, subsequent ones did not, but it's still slow. I am running large programs and big files, but it could also be unrelated.
What can I do other than wipe it? I'm not sure that's an option because several program I can't reinstall. (I do not have discs and they are no longer available for download.)
Try different antivirus software. DH got a nasty extortion virus (it encrypted all his files and tried to get him to wire money in exchange for the encryption key) that most antivirus software doesn't even detect. He googled the virus name and found one antivirus that could get rid of it, and then he was able to use the restore function on Windows 6 to get back the previous unencrypted version of all his files. It's been more than a month and he hasn't had any trouble again.
AmyRI Did he get the Cryptolocker? That one is a bitch to deal with and if you don't have backups? You are screwed.
DH has had to restore a couple of companies systems from backups because of it and tell one company, that didn't want to spend the money for a decent back up system, that they were screwed and would lose a week's worth of data because that was when they did their last complete system backup.
Thanks! I used a windows one (likely useless) and malwarebytes. I'll look for another.
Yeah, sometimes you need to run more than one to get everything, TBH. I have both a Windows one and Kaspersky on my laptop and run them both regularly and they find different stuff from each other at times. It does seem like the ones you have to pay for update their databases more frequently than freeware.
AmyRI Did he get the Cryptolocker? That one is a bitch to deal with and if you don't have backups? You are screwed.
DH has had to restore a couple of companies systems from backups because of it and tell one company, that didn't want to spend the money for a decent back up system, that they were screwed and would lose a week's worth of data because that was when they did their last complete system backup.
I'm not sure what the name of it was. But my super geeky IT friend from work got no where. DH would have lost everything from the past year if Windows hadn't been backing stuff up for him! He has been bad about backing up to our external drive and is skeptical of cloud storage, but he is reformed now, lol.