{"id":321,"date":"2011-06-01T13:17:47","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T18:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/?p=321"},"modified":"2011-06-01T13:18:19","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T18:18:19","slug":"tip-is-there-malware-on-my-computer-wichita-it-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/2011\/06\/01\/tip-is-there-malware-on-my-computer-wichita-it-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Tip: Is there Malware on My Computer? &#8211; Wichita IT Support"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Wichita IT Support Tip for June 1st, 2011<\/h2>\n<p>Is there malware on my computer?\u00a0 This may sound like an odd question.\u00a0 Most people are under the impression that they will recognize the symptoms of an infection immediately.\u00a0 Unless you are in tune with the way your computer runs normally (It sounds very Zen, but is actually something a good computer tech will just feel) your system could be infected and not show the classical signs.\u00a0 Here are some\u00a0obvious signs (and some not so obvious) that you might keep in mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>Popups<\/strong> &#8211; Everyone recognizes these, from the networking consultant to the average user.\u00a0 The web browser will pop open with an ad, even when you aren&#8217;t using the web.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sluggishness<\/strong> &#8211; A sluggish computer can mean multiple things, but if it comes on suddenly and responsiveness is suffering, it might be a sign of infection.\u00a0 Not all malware is well written, causing performance to degrade.\u00a0 The system may also be performing a number of tasks that you don&#8217;t want it to be performing (like installing even more malware.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Poor Search Engine Performance<\/strong> &#8211; This is a newer variant we&#8217;ve been seeing a lot of in the past year.\u00a0 Go to Google and search for the word <em>test<\/em>.\u00a0 The first result should be a site called <em>test.com<\/em>.\u00a0 Click on the link to visit the site, then look at your address bar.\u00a0 Are you at <em>test.com<\/em>, or are you somewhere else?\u00a0 If you aren&#8217;t at the right site, you could have a search engine redirector installed on your machine.\u00a0 It reads your searches, then compares it to a list of sites the malware writer can make money from, redirecting you there instead.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Frequent Email Problems <\/strong>&#8211; If more and more people <em>aren&#8217;t <\/em>getting your email, you may have a problem on your machine.\u00a0 Some malware installs software that actually send spam from your computer.\u00a0 The more spam sent, the more likely your system will be blacklisted.\u00a0 Big companies use spam filters that will block email from known spam locations.\u00a0 Your legitimate email will be lumped in with the other stuff being sent from your machine.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Antivirus Issues<\/strong> &#8211; You&#8217;re on top of the game and have antivirus installed.\u00a0 Is it working?\u00a0 Check the icon, usually in the task tray on the bottom right of the screen.\u00a0 Hover over it.\u00a0 Does it give any errors or say it is disabled?\u00a0 A good bit of malware is designed to break your antivirus software.\u00a0 Make sure it is still running, but don&#8217;t count on it to block everything.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you have any of these issues, it&#8217;s time to do something about them.\u00a0 The\u00a0first malware that appears on your machine usually opens the door for others.\u00a0 Once they get a foothold, performance will continue to suffer as well as security.\u00a0 With this kind of access to your machine, hackers can gather all sorts of data from your machine.<\/p>\n<p>Call Proper Technology Solutions at (316) 337-5628.\u00a0 We can resolve most of your malware issues without losing data or rebuilding your machine from scratch.\u00a0 Either remotely or on site, we can clean up your system and restore your optimal performance.\u00a0 Our technicians are college-educated, certified and familiar with most systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wichita IT Support Tip for June 1st, 2011 Is there malware on my computer?\u00a0 This may sound like an odd question.\u00a0 Most people are under the impression that they will recognize the symptoms of an infection immediately.\u00a0 Unless you are &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/2011\/06\/01\/tip-is-there-malware-on-my-computer-wichita-it-support\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5,134],"tags":[9,86,87],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.properwichita.com\/consulting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}