This is a follow up post to: Is that file really safe?
First up: Check the obvious signs. Are you getting constant nags of attention? E.G. Programs that find a LOT of “bad files” and want you to pay right that moment? Or constant YOUR INFECTED! Warnings? Can you Google and land on a well known antivirus website? Or really anything beyond your antivirus saying hey I found something.
With that out of the way here are a few websites/tools that can double check your machine for infections.
1. The very versatile Trend Micro: Housecall. This service is free and very nice. It can scan from the web your computer (may it be windows, mac, Linux, or Solaris). <--- It means its not Windows based like the others. Another thing is that its not Internet Explorer based either (its based on java if you want it to). If trend finds anything (virus, worm, rootkit, expliot, greyware, malware, trojan, dialer, unwanted, etc) it will remove it for free. Which is nice.2. If your computer is so infected that a virus blocks trend micro (or really everything that it possibly can). Download Comobofix from bleeping computer on another machine and transfer to the infected machine. Comobo fix is a great tool as well it will scan and kill off almost every heavy duty infection possible. (yes I can say that from experience!). It won’t remove every little thing, but it will remove enough of to let you to start to use your computer again.
3. Next up: A Squared-Anti Malware Online scan.. Although its both IE based, and windows only the web scanner will find everything else thats on the machine. (99.7% as of this post). If you don’t want to use IE, you can download it (windows only) here.
If you still think that your infected (or your paranoid after a infection) try the bullguard forums. You have to register but they have fantastic posters who will help you remove whats left (if anything).
Prevent this in the first place
Related posts:
- Tips to prevent yourself from being infected.
- Tasks to do when you get that new computer (Checklist)
- Tell Microsoft And Apple To Move Over In This Economic Downturn
- 130,000+ sites infected by new malware
- News: The Twitter Malware Issue Is Getting Worse.