I opened something and all of a sudden i have my mcavee saying i have a virus that people could steal info off my computer, whenever i went on internet it directed me to a fix it page to buy spyware protection, my wife got on and did a system reboot to yesterday,and everything seems to be working fine, how else can i tell if everything is secure? Does this delete any viruses that could have gotten on?
Best way is, you insatll a standard antivirus soft ware such as Norton, AVG , Avast ( free antivirus software and Ad-aware, Ewido ( free spyware removers). You can download free softwares at
http://fixit.in/antivirus.html and http://fixit.in/spywareremover.html
No, You cannot tell. Your react as if You know that it happened.
If You suspect such: You react as if You found a key logger or other malware & want to remove it. You will do complete virus scans – & adaware search additionly and all Your standard procedures.
To me it sounds as if Your wife has just done what was needed.
Great girl!
Finally You make sure that nothing dangerous can be left in autostart. And then You shutdown Your PC & repeat the procedure once after next restart. Maybe that was done also? So just in case…
Malware must reside in autostrat to be effective. Since You are not gonna start it intentioanlly;-) Search and shut down processes in autostart that You do not know and use. Most malware hunting programs do that anyway – to make sure?
http://www.sysinternals.com // they have a lot of good free tools
Process Utilities "Autoruns" Shut down the programs in "logon"
that are not by Microsoft ( except Your firewall and Your anti virus software – which should be there also ). Inspect other sections for "funny" looking things – especially if they are not by Microsoft or Your hardware manufacturers they look "funny" in autostarts
A check what processes are runing would not be wrong either.
Maybe use sysinternals ProcessExplorer. The program also helps to stop processes that look dubious to You.
Btw. take into account that some malware may just be hoaxing You – use free tools for scanning as long as You use Your PC privately.
thx for reading my post.