Virus & Malware Removal
Malware comes in many forms with differing symptoms, from creating annoying pop-up windows to slowing your computer down so much that it becomes unuseable.
More worrying is the increase in ransomware appearing over the past few years. One particularly nasty example is CryptoLocker. It is usually spread via email and, once activated, it begins encrypting the files it finds on your hard disk and network drives. Once complete it will display a message similar to the one shown that demands a ransom for the key that allows your files to be decrypted. The infection itself is fairly straightforward to remove but there is no way to decrypt your files (without paying the ransom, which we would never recommend). The only option is to restore from a backup - assuming you have one - or use Windows built-in utility called Shadow Copies which can sometimes restore your files to an earlier version, before they were encrypted. |
We use a variety of different software utilities and techniques to clean systems, depending on how bad the malware infection is. On the odd occasion that a computer is too heavily infected to clean properly we will backup your data, wipe the hard drive and re-install Windows. Once Windows is re-installed and all the latest updates are applied we restore your documents. This is always a last resort and we will speak with you beforehand.
After your system has been cleaned we will ensure that you have adequate, up-to-date anti-malware software installed and advise on how to (hopefully) avoid future problems.
After your system has been cleaned we will ensure that you have adequate, up-to-date anti-malware software installed and advise on how to (hopefully) avoid future problems.