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There is a lot of paranoia about computer viruses, we often think that the incorrect operation of some of our hardware components is due to the action of a virus. While it is true that this can be caused by a virus, many other times this happens due to mechanical issues of physical accessories.
However, when a virus has really been installed on our disk or worse still in our operating systemall the alarms must be turned on in order to eliminate it as quickly as possible.
We have carried out an analysis of what consequences could bring viruses into our computer, as well as how to detect if they really are viruses or the failures are the result of other reasons. At the end of this article, we will recommend the best online tools for you to check for malware.
What consequences can a virus have on my computer?
Being files that are dedicated to altering the operation of any computer device with or without the user’s permission, and with or without the user’s knowledge, they generate different results that have a greater or lesser degree of consequences.
Taking into account that each virus is designed for a special function, We are going to summarize the consequences that they can produce in our computer as the following:
minor annoyances
Any kind of inconvenience that may occur on our computer or mobile without our consent, they are usually triggered through a virus. For example, changing the brightness of the screen, locking the screen, increasing the volume, switching between tabs when browsing the Internet, the appearance of dialog boxes, etc.
Actions against SSD
A slightly bigger problem than the previous point is when it interferes with our hard drive. For example, when you overwrite or format it, losing all kinds of information that we had on it.
If the virus acts directly on the supporting files or operating system directoriesyou can access it and do whatever you want, many times delete all the saved information, some steal it directly without us realizing it, and completely destroy the Bios.
They also cause problems with the startup of the operating system, making us have to try the startup process over and over again.
Hardware
It is true that viruses cannot damage the hardware of our computer, what they can do is act against them through the improper use of certain actions that they can manage and thus only break the hardware.
For example, can send orders to the printer so that it runs its head from one side to the other many times, or it can cause the drives we have for storage to spin rapidly, causing wear on the read heads.
Another example of how a virus can damage hardware is when it emits a signal and can play videos or songs at a very high volume causing the speakers to break or burn.
write protected
A virus cannot directly interfere with a hardware nor on those data or information that is protected against writing, it is important to clarify this because many people can make big mistakes when considering that viruses are capable of doing these things.
Steps to find out if my computer has a virus or malware quickly and easily
In order to determine if our computer hosts malicious software, we will have to proceed as indicated below:
the computer hangs
If we have already opened the least expected program long enough, realizing that the reason why our computer crashed is not a heavy program.
Let’s follow these steps:
- We carry out the command “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” either “Ctrl + Alt + Del”both will take us to the task manager.
- We look for the program for which it is not working correctly
- We click on “To finalize” and the program should close normally
If this does not happen we may be in the presence of a virus.
Pop-up windows that you do not authorize
When windows that we have not authorized do not start to open, it is very likely that we are suffering from a virus attack.
To do this we will have to close the pop-up windows as follows, using the Chrome browser as an example:
- We open the browser
- We click on “Plus”
- we seek “Setting”
- We select “Advanced configuration”
- We click on “Privacy & Security”
- We squeeze “Website Settings”
- we choose “Pop-ups and redirects”
- We select “Locked”
With this we are not eliminating the virus of our operating system we are simply making the inconvenience they cause us less.
Lack of hard drive space
We are always noticing that our hard drive is full and this should not happen, we are going to check that there is no virus that is carrying out this action.
We are going to follow these steps, taking as an example the installation of a tool called Folder Size Setup Wizard:
- We open the application
- Execute as an administrator
- We choose disk C, or any that we doubt if it is full
- Scan
He will give us a report app in which it will show us through a rounded graph how much capacity we have available, does our operating system take up, how much do file programs take up, and how much other information.
We will detect at this moment if the disk that we have analyzed is really there, otherwise it will be, as we told you at the beginning, an action of a virus.
Download FolderSize Windows
Malfunctioning controllers
To find out if any driver that we have installed on the computer is malfunctioning, we are going to use an app that will help us with this task.
Let’s use and install “Installed Driver List”which is an application that detects all the drivers that we have installed on our computer and checks their normal operation.
The steps are:
- We open the application
- We choose to scan
- We select “Report”
- We will be able to see from this moment if it is a virus issue or not.
Download InstalledDriversList Windows
Hardware performance problems
Just as we mentioned before, a virus does not break hardware, but it can influence the software that controls them.
If we do not want to analyze the hardware drivers, we can verify previously through an eye inspection. We will review every detail, just in case there is something broken or out of place causing the malfunction.
Abnormal behavior of certain programs
When we detect that certain programs are behaving differently from their previous features, we are going to have to analyze them through an antivirus.
We are going to install for this step “Kaspersky Free Antivirus” and follow the instructions below:
- We open the application
- We choose the place that we want you to analyze the program, we recommend you for this point, that is, the whole team
- We select “Start”
- The system will not automatically be where the error exists
- we choose “Remove”
Download Kaspersky Free Antivirus Windows
Firewall is automatically disabled
This is one of the most noticeable signs of the presence of viruses. For this we will do as the previous step we will choose an antivirus And we’ll let it run
List of the best programs and online tools to identify viruses on your computer
Online tools are Internet pages in which we can access them without the need to apply anything prior, while browser extensions are small tools that we add to them and we can use them with a single click.
We can analyze not only our computer but we can also verify the content or not of viruses or malware of files and harmful URLs.
Next, we are going to name the most important tools that we have found according to our analysis:
blog.virustotal.com
It is a platform that is based on the automation of the same to be able to perform malware analysis hosted especially in the cloud.
It also analyzes operating system kernel drivers, detecting and eliminating them under our supervision.
VTchromizer
It is an extension to the Chrome browser
We can apply an extension to our browser so that every time we visit a page through this extension we can avoid the installation of malicious files.
With this extension we only click on the link and write the URL that we want to analyze.
vtzilla 2.0
Work very similar to the Chrome browser extension, but this is intended for when we use Firefox as the default browser.
Its application is very simple and every time we want to analyze a file or a link we will only have to write in the address bar of the extension.
VT explorer
Extension for Internet Explorer in the We can add to analyze a probable phishing, a report will not be issued in html format.
Download VTexplorer Windows
F-Secure.com
It is characterized by the speed with which it can analyze a wide variety of antiviruses that you have previously loaded.
VirusTotal API 2.0 UDF
This script tool allows us different controls with which the functions can be executed more quickly. You can retrieve a scanned report, re-scan files, you can copy the URL and scan it later.
Download VirusTotal API 2.0 UDF Windows
Panda Cloud Cleaner
It offers antivirus functions just like its classic application to scan viruses or other malware that can harm our PC.
It offers the possibility of analyzing files which we will have to attach to its search bar.
It is constantly being updated so they provide a lot of security and confidence to users.
Download Panda Cloud Cleaner Windows
metadefender.opswat.com
Works like an antivirus online way that scans each of the files that we have or want to enter to our computer and also detect viruses or malware.
It offers, like almost all these tools, a bar for analysis in which we will have to enter the URL that we need to analyze it.
VirScan.org
It provides alternatives that some other online antiviruses do not offer, for example, it can scan files in “.zip” either “.rar”. Its analysis capacity for this class of files is up to 20 MB.
EsT Online Scanner
It offers the possibility of scanning our equipment in a complete way, in addition to its already traditional analysis of files and web pages. In addition to very complete and simple to understand reports.
Download EseT Online Scanner Windows
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