Sometimes your computer catches a nasty virus or malware no matter how careful you are. It could be that a legitimate document was infected by a coworker or someone used your computer without you looking. But now that you have malware, what do you do next?
The first step is to use the antivirus/malware program you already have installed. Open up your program, check for updates and run a full scan. If you’re lucky, your computer will be clean by the end of the scan.
However, once you’ve been infected with malware, it has a way of not giving up easily. It may not allow you to run your antivirus program or not allow you to update it. If this is the case or the initial scan you ran earlier didn’t clean your computer, you’ll need to take a more involved route–scanning your computer from a boot disk.
On a different computer (one that’s definitely not infected), download Kasperksy Rescue Disk. It comes as an ISO file, which means you’ll have to burn it to a CD. If you don’t have a CD-burner or a CD drive in the infected computer, Kaspersky has instructions on how to load it onto a USB flash drive.
Once you have a Kaspersky Rescue Disk created, put it in the infected computer and boot from it. If you don’t know how to boot from a CD or USB drive, Kasperksy has instructions on that as well. From there, it’s a matter of following the onscreen instructions to scan and clean your computer. After it’s done with its scan and you reboot your computer for the first time, be sure to run another update and full scan with your day-to-day antivirus software. This will help verify that your computer is indeed clean.
If you’ve followed the steps above and you’re still experiencing troubles with your computer, you may need to hire a pro to come in and take a look at what’s going on. At OAC Technology, a Minneapolis-based IT company, we have been removing viruses and malware for over 10 years and can help clean your computer and get you back online.
