Computer viruses seem to hit us at the most inopportune times; slowing down our computer or making it completely inoperable. Although some people seem to know exactly how they were struck, most have no idea and only notice their computer slowing. Like everything else, computer viruses change with times.
Years ago viruses attacked file systems and threatened the overall system integrity. Viruses would get into the operating system and run amuck deleting files and causing the computer to fail. As time went on the creators of computer viruses smartened up and began demanding money which made diagnosing very easy. Current virus attacks on Windows 10 are sometimes difficult to pick up.
Antivirus software manufacturers work hard to create software and utilities that prevent and eradicate virus infections. Modern titles are designed to run in the background and promise to pluck threats before they get onto the system. Although their claim is prevention, antivirus software is reactive and can only detect viruses once they’re on a computer.
With each new version of Windows, Microsoft promises better ways of preventing viruses from getting onto a computer. As the Windows environment becomes safer, virus creators work to circumvent shields and security technologies implemented by Windows. Unfortunately with multiple operating systems currently in use, viruses today have many ways in which they can infect computers.
Lately we’ve noticed that many Windows 10 users don’t know they’re infected and simply report their computer running slow. Signs we used to use during our initial diagnostics are no longer visible so we recreated our process to include hidden files. Oddly, we’ve been seeing older viruses without blatant signs.
Although we’ll never know how Windows 10 tries to prevent threats from getting onto a computer, we can surmise based on our experience. It took our team quite a while to come to this assumption solely based on seeing many virus laden machines since the introduction of Windows 10. We believe the latest version of Windows has some good (but not perfect) built-in security features.
Windows 10 comes with Microsoft Edge, their new browser, as well as their built-in Defender software suite which are both designed to work together. If a user stumbles onto an infected website while using Edge, the computer is supposed to test the software in a sandbox before installing. If the software appears safe it is then scanned with Microsoft Defender. Both of which seem to be pretty decent at detection.
However, we’ve been noticing only part of the virus is installed on the computer which tells us the new system is only doing part of the job. Third party antivirus software will occasionally recognize an infected computer, try their cleaning process and come up empty. Microsoft seems to be able to only delete portions of the virus leaving a mess of random chunks of viruses behind.
We noticed Windows 10 dealt with viruses different than other versions when it was first released. Customers who upgraded infected systems had errors while using their PC’s and came up empty handed after performing initial diagnostics. It wasn’t until after starting the process we noticed portions of the virus had been lopped.
My current suggestion is to make sure Windows 10 computers have some type of antivirus software installed with the latest updates. Keep a second on-demand antimalware utility installed like Malwarebytes and run regular scans. Even though Windows comes with all these great features, I still recommend not downloading and installing anything you believe might be suspicious. Unfortunately, virus prevention is still the user’s responsibility.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.Localcomputerwiz.com.)