Symptoms of a system infection

1. Slowdown

It takes longer than normal for your operating system to boot up? Are you waiting too long for some of your programs to start?

It is a known fact that malware has the tendency to slow down your operating system, your Internet speed or the speed of your applications.

If you notice something like this and you are not using any resource-heavy program or application, check first for other causes. It may be a lack of RAM memory, a fragmented system, a lack of space on your hard drive or maybe a hardware issue affecting your drive.

If you have already verified these possible causes and all seemed fine, maybe you should start suspecting a malware issue on the system.

For additional reasons why your computer might be slow and how to fix it, take a look at this article.

2. Pop-ups

One of the most annoying signs of malware is represented by the unwanted pop-up windows. Unexpected pop-ups which appear on the system are a typical sign of a spyware infection.

In this particular case, the main issue is created not only by the numerous pop-up windows that affect your Internet navigation, but also because it is quite difficult to remove them from the system. Pop-ups are not only annoying, but they usually come together with other malware threats which are concealed from our eyes, and which could be far more destructive for our systems.

To avoid spyware and its negative consequences for our systems, keep in mind a few security practices:

• don’t click any suspicious pop-up windows
• don’t answer to unexpected answers
• be careful when downloading free applications

To remove this type of threat, you need a very good security product against spyware. A few popular products capable of removing spyware from your system are Malwarebytes, Spybot Search and Destroy, Lavasoft’s Ad-Awareand others.

You can find here more information on removing spyware.

3. Crashes

If your programs or your system regularly crash or the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) appears regularly, it is a clear warning that your system is not working properly and you should look into it.

We need to mention here the 2 particular cases which may cause this problem. You could be dealing with a technical issue caused by a potential incompatibility between your programs or it may be a malware issue.

If you suspect a technical issue, multiple software problems may lead to this.Are you running various programs which may conflict with each other? Is there any orphan registry keys which have not been removed slowing down and eventually crashing your system?

If you are checking for malware, simply run a complete scan on the system with a good antivirus product. It is important to have a reliable security solution on your system, which should include real-time scanning, automatic update and a firewall.

To find the best solution, check the antivirus test results run by big company names in the security industry, such as AV Comparatives, PC Magazine, AV-TEST or Virus Bulletin and select the best antivirus solution for your system.

4. Suspicious Hard drive activity

Another warning sign of a potential malware infection on your system is thehard drive activity. If you notice that your disk continues to have excessive activity even when you don’t use it anymore and there is no present program or download running at that moment, this could be the moment to check your system for malware.

We have to mention that another possible cause for the abnormal hard disk activity could be a hardware failure of the disk. This should also be taken into consideration.

5. Running out of hard drive space

Regarding the hard drive, you also need to check if your physical storage space has been increasing lately or if some of your files disappeared or changed their names. This is another sign of malware activity, since there are numerous types of malicious software which use various methods to fill up all the available space in the hard drive.

6. Unusual high network activity

There are cases where the user is not connected to the Internet with his browser and there is no program that may connect to online servers to download or upload any data,  but a high network activity can still be observed.

First of all, we need to check the following:

•  Is there any Windows update at that moment?
•  Is there any program or application that may be downloading or uploading any data?
•  Is there any update for a certain program running at that moment?
•  Is there a large download that you started and forgot about it and is still running in the background?

If the answer to all these questions is No, then maybe you should check where all that traffic is going.

• To monitor your network, you can use one of the following programs:GlassWire, Little Snitch or Wireshark.

• To check for a malware infection, use a good antivirus product to check your system.

• If you suspect that your computer has been infected by a dangerous financial malware, you need a specialized software designed to address these type of threats.

7. New Browser home page, new toolbars and/or your browser opens unwanted websites

Did you notice your home page has been changed and you don’t seem to know why? A new toolbar seems to be placed at top of your web browser? Have you tried to access your favorite blog, but you were sent to a different address?

This usually happens when you visit a website and you accidentaly click an online link or a pop-up window. This action triggers the download and install of a secondary software, which is not only annoying, but also malicious.

Run a complete scan with your security solution as soon as possible.Because these type of threats don’t easily go away, make sure you run additional scans with specialized software, such as anti-spyware programs mentioned above.

8. Unusual messages or programs starting automatically

If, all of a sudden, you see programs opening and closing automatically, your Windows operating system shutting down without reason or you havestrange windows in the booting process and Windows lets you know that you lost access to some of your drives, this is something you should worry about.

Though it may be a technical issue, it is also a sign that malware could be present on the system. If this is the case and you lost access to some important areas of your operating system, you need to prepare for the worst. These are the cases when a complete wipe and reinstall of the operating system is taken into consideration.

9. Your security solution is disabled

Your antivirus solution doesn’t seem to work anymore or the Update module seems to be disabled. You should know that some malware programs are specially designed to disable security programs, leaving you without any defense. If you already tried to reboot your computer, close and open the security solution and all other normal troubleshooting steps resulted in no positive outcome, you may consider that your computer has been affected by malware.

Though we prepare for the worst, we complement our online security by employing advanced anti-spyware solutions and security programs specially designed to keep our money safe, there are cases when a powerful malware gets beyond our defenses and compromises our security solution.

10. Your friends say they receive strange messages or e-mails from you

Are your friends telling you that they received suspicious e-mails from you or instant messages from your social media account containing attachments or links?

First of all, you need to verify whether those e-mails or messages were sent from one of your accounts (so check your Sent Items folder in your e-mail account) or if those messages were delivered from an application which is out of your control.

If you discover the messages were sent from one of your accounts, make sure of the following:

• Make sure you logged out from all your accounts. We access the same accounts on our work computers, on our home laptops and of course, on our mobile devices. Since we log in to our favorite online accounts on so many mobile devices, it is quite possible that sometimes we forget to log out. Therefore, always make sure to log out from your online accounts on all the devices.

• Set strong passwords for your accounts. Don’t forget to combine upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Don’t use the same password for all your accounts. Even if you are hacked, having different passwords for each account will help you limit a potential loss. Make a habit of changing your main passwords every 30 days.  Use a strong and secure password manager as LastPass.

• Use two-factor authentication. Use this method to make sure your online accounts or your e-mail address are not accessed by somebody else. Using this option means that, besides entering your credentials, you will also need to enter a code sent to your phone.

Knowledge is our best weapon

Knowing how malicious software behaves on a regular system may just prove to be the key element between staying safe and having your system wrecked or your online identity stolen.

Since we live in a threat environment, online security means not only to install a series of security programs and forget about them, but to understand how malware manifests itself on the system and thus to know our enemy.

In the end, it is our knowledge of malware tools and methods that keeps us safe, because it is far easier to prevent a threat from becoming reality than to take actions against it when it’s already too late.