While in previous years the type of infections that could get on your computer were out to damage it, today’s infections are out to track you and trick you into giving up your financial information.
However, in order for these infections to work, they need to either go hidden in the background or convince you of their authenticity. One of the more prominent infections is the rootkit. These infections will typically be noticed by changes to how you browse the web. Has your homepage mysteriously changed to a site you don’t recognize or pop-ups on websites that typically do not have pop-ups? When you search for something on the internet do your search results redirect you to a website you don’t think you clicked on? These are all signs of a rootkit infection.
One sneakier type of infection is the tracker. While harder to detect, these programs simply run in the background and track information on the sites you visit. While rarely ‘showing themselves’ these trackers are typically found and packs, and, much like running multiple programs at the same, cause your computer speed to dramatically slow down. If your computer feels like it was speedy one day and a drag the next, there might be some malicious programs taking up system resources in the background!
Another common type of infection today is the ‘ransom-ware’ infection. Typically you will know when your hit with these infection types because you cannot get them to go away. Ransomware infections typically disguise themselves as legitimate anti-virus or repair programs however after they tell you of your ‘problem’ you cannot access your PC or make the program go away without ‘providing payment’. Please note that providing payment will in no way make the infection go away, they simply now have your payment information. The problem with all these types of these infections are they open the back door for other infections to come in so removal should be of immediate concern.
If infections remain on a computer too long, that is when corruption starts and the further along the corruption gets to go the harder it is to pull the system back from the brink. We recommend to all our customers if there is even a suspicion of infection on a computer to bring it in right away. Frankenstein can typically tell you if your computer is infected within hours of dropping it off, and if the system is infected, return your computer to you within 24 hours. When it comes to your system its always better to be safe than sorry.
Frankenstein Computers has been taking care of our happy clients since 1999. We specialize in affordable IT Support, Cyber Security, IT Service, IT Security, Office 365, Cloud, VOIP, SPAM, Wireless, Network Design, MAC repair, PC Repair, Virus Removal, remote support, web design, on site support and much more. Check out what our clients have to say about us on Yelp!