Eight Symptoms That Tell you of a Malware Infection

Is your computer behaving eerily with unwanted pop-ups, strange warnings, and never-before-seen errors? This could a possible sign of a malware infection. According to a report published by a cybersecurity-based company, Malwarebytes, in Jan 2016, 18% of the malware infection was caused by a payload or exploit. By the end of Dec 2016, the number shot up to 66%. This means that increasingly malware are delivered to your system with your notice, making it hard to detect the malware that has crept in. However, there are symptoms or signs one should look for to identify and remove a malware infection.

1. Slowdown

Have you noticed recently that your computer’s performance has severely slowed down, despite no major changes? If you haven’t installed a RAM-hogging application or not performing a task that demands memory, you should consider a potential malware infection. Well, malware have the tendency to infect and utterly reduce the performance of the system.

2. New, unfamiliar icons on desktop

If you have noticed unknown and new icons on the desktop of your computer, you may have downloaded a Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs). They are considered to be malware and can do a lot a damage by collecting private information, showing annoying ads or pop-ups on the desktop or adding toolbars on your browser.

3. Suspicious hard drive activity

Should you notice that your disk continues to exhibit excessive activity even when you don’t use it and there is no program or download running at that moment, this could be the right time to check your system for malware.

4. Out of hard drive space

If you notice that your hard drive is losing out on space, you must see it as a sign of malware activity. Since there are several types of malicious programs and some use such methods to fill up all the available space in the hard drive. This will cause it to crash the system.

5. Unusually high network activity

There are cases where the user is not connected to the Internet through his browser, and there is no program that may connect to online servers to download or upload any data, but high network activity can still be observed. This is a clear case of a suspicious program that steals your data and sends it to attackers servers.

6. Unwanted emails or social posts

You should be careful if your friends complain about unknown messages or emails from your account. Take it seriously and install and scan your computer with a reputed antivirus or malware cleaner software.

7. Disable security software

At times, you’ll notice your security software is disabled and doesn’t protect your system in real time. In addition, even if turned on, it will turned turn it off on its own. You should see it as an infection from the malware.

8. Unusual error messages

Should you see any unknown error messages, it could be a warning sign that is infected with malware. These type of messages can suggest your PC has been compromised and affect its system performance, making the apps and programs run slowly.

Therefore, you should keep your attention on your system. Any symptom or minor sign should not be neglected as it could be a potential malware. Get a reputed antivirus to scan your system regularly.