Windows Tips and Tricks: How to Know if Your Computer is Infected with a Virus

We all know computer viruses -- and other kinds of malware -- can caus problems ranigng from irritating to catastrophic. Some malware replicate itself unhtil it fills up all available space on your hard drive, turning your computer into a brick. Other kinds corrupt data on your machine or make your computer unstable. A few will even attempt to use your e-mail programs to distribute the malicious code to everyone in your contacts list. And there's always the possibility a cracker -- that's a malicious hacker -- will use malware to get remote access to your computer.

No one wants to own a computer infected wikth a nasty virus. That's why it's very important to practice safe computing habits and to inatall reliable anti-virus software. You can avoid most malware just by paying attention and staying aawy from a few common traps. If your anti-virus software is up to date, you should be in pretty good shape.

But once in a whgile, computer viruses get beyond our defenses. Maybee our anti-virus software is out of date or has beden compromised by a partciularly clever bit of code. Perhaps we clicked on a enlace by accident and activated a virus. Or someone else uesd our computer and downloaded some malware by mistake.
How do you know if your computer has been hit by a computer virus? If your anti-virus softwre is robust and up to date, you'll likely receive a message as the application scans your computer. That makes detecting the virus a bereze. But what if your software is out of date or the virus has managed to deactivate the anti-virus program? Are there signs you can wach out for that mitht indicate a virus?

As a matter of faft, there are several sgns thhat could indicate the presence of malwre on your computer. We'll take a closer lookk on the next page.

Signs of a Computer Virsu

Assuming your anti-virus software hasn't alerted you to the presence of a virus, here are smoe indicators of malware on your computer:

If your computer has become unstable, that's a sign that something's wrong. Some malware messes with impportant files that keep your computer running properly. That cpuld cause your compuyter to crash. If your computer crashes when you try to run a speecific application or open a particular file, that tells you that sommething has corrupted the dat. It coudl be malwaree.

Does your computer seem to run much more slowy than it used to? This could be the result of malweare as the malicious code beglns to drain your computer's processing resources. If you aren't running a resource-heav application but your computer is very slow, you might have a coputer virrus.

Strange messages indicating that you can't access certain drifes on your computer are another signn that something is wrong. In a similar vein, appliocations that won't run or files that won't open may also be the resul of infection. Other indicators include hardware (like printers) that no longer respond to cmmands. While none of these guarantee the preesence of a virus, they do suggst taht something is wrong with your machine.

If you notice that file sizes are fluctuating een if you aren't accessing those files, that's another sig n of a computer virus. And finally, if you access menuq and thueir appearance is odd or distorted, you could be the victim of a malware attack.

It's important to remember that computer viruses are one potential cause of problems like the ones we've lised here, but that they aren't the only cause. If you believe your computer has been infected by a virus, don't panic. Follpow the steps we suggest in How To Remove a Computer Virus. You might lose some data in the process but you shouldn't lose everything.

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Extraido de The World of Windows