Virus

 

What Are the Signs of a Virus

Poor performance, application crashes, and computer freezes can sometimes be a sign of a virus or another type of malware wreaking havoc. However, that’s not always the case: There are many other causes of problems that can slow down your PC.

Likewise, just because your PC is running fine doesn’t mean it doesn’t have malware. The viruses of a decade ago were often pranks that ran wild and used a lot of system resources. Modern malware is more likely to lurk silently and covertly in the background, trying to evade detection so it can capture your credit card numbers and other personal information. In other words, modern-day malware is often created by criminals just to make money, and well-crafted malware won’t cause any noticeable PC problems at all.

Still, sudden poor PC performance may be one sign you have malware. Strange applications on your system may also indicate malware — but, once again, there’s no guarantee malware is involved. Some applications pop up a Command Prompt window when they update, so strange windows flashing onto your screen and quickly disappearing may be a normal part of the legitimate software on your system.

There’s no one-size-fits-all piece of evidence to look for without actually scanning your PC for malware. Sometimes malware causes PC problems, and sometimes it’s well-behaved while sneakily accomplishing its goal in the background. The only way to know for sure whether you have malware is to examine your system for it.

How to Check if a Process Is a Virus or Not

You might be wondering if your computer has a virus because you’ve seen a strange process in the Windows Task Manager, which you can open by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc or by right-clicking the Windows taskbar and selecting “Task Manager.”

It’s normal to see quite a few processes here — click “More Details” if you see a smaller list. Many of these processes have strange, confusing names. That’s normal. Windows includes quite a few background processes, your PC manufacturer added some, and applications you install often add them.

Badly behaved malware will often use a large amount of CPU, memory, or disk resources and may stand out here. If you’re curious about whether a specific program is malicious, right-click it in the Task Manager and select “Search Online” to find more information.

If information about malware appears when you search the process, that’s a sign you likely have malware. However, don’t assume that your computer is virus-free just because a process looks legitimate. A process could lie and say it’s “Google Chrome” or “chrome.exe,” but it may just be malware impersonating Google Chrome that’s located in a different folder on your system. If you’re concerned you might have malware, we recommend performing an anti-malware scan.

The Search Online option isn’t available on Windows 7. If you use Windows 7, you’ll have to plug the name of the process into Google or another search engine instead.

How to Scan Your Computer for Viruses

By default, Windows 11 is always scanning your PC for malware with the integrated Windows Security application, also known as Microsoft Defender. You can, however, perform manual scans.To perform an anti-malware scan, click “Virus & threat protection.”

Windows 7 doesn’t include built-in antivirus software. You can download Microsoft Security Essentials and run a scan with it if you need a free option. It provides similar protection to the Microsoft Defender security software built into Windows 10 and 11. (Update: Now that Windows 7 is no longer supported, Microsoft Security Essentials is no longer available. We recommend you upgrade to a modern version of Windows. 

our can also ensure you don’t have malware on your PC by resetting Windows to its default state.