So You Got A Virus
Definition of a virus:
a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer; "a true virus cannot spread to another computer without human assistance"
Definition of a trojan:
a program that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful; "the contents of a trojan can be a virus or a worm"
Same thing, right? Right.
Alright, you could get a virus in the most honest way possible... by that I mean by downloading something besides porn 🙄 You could've downloaded something interesting, like a little game you found somewhere that goes with Blender and it can contain a virus... this is an example of a trojan (speaking from experience 😟 ).
Utilities
These are free utilities you can use to fix your computer. (Don't download them now and use them... read on for more information).
What I recommend is downloading these utilities now while your computer is not infected and saving these utilities on a flash drive.
ComboFix
In most cases, this would fix your computer... at least to the point that it's usable again (If the virus blocked you from using the internet, Task Manager...).
It is recommended that you disable all of the scanners on your computer (antivirus scanners, etc.) before running this utility.
SmitFraudFix
This is another utility similar to ComboFix... it is recommended to run this utility in Safe Mode and all of the scanners disabled.
HiJackThis
This beast is NOT a virus scanners. The results it provides are NOT viruses or infected files (at least not all of them are) so DO NOT check and fix everything there... you need to get the results analyzed (Read on to find out how). What it shows you are all the services and running files on your computer.
To determine which of the results are bad and which of the results are good, copy the contents of the log that it saves (and pups up in most cases) and paste them in the textarea of an HiJackThis analyzer.
Usage
Here is when you should start working on fixing your computer (If it is infected).
Copy ComboFix.exe from your flashdrive onto the desktop of your infected computer and rename it... doesn't matter what you rename it to, just make sure that the .exe is present at the end. If you still not sure just rename it to qvb.exe
Now make sure that all the scanners are turned off. If you're not sure how to turn the scanners of, check what scanners are running (just running qvb.exe would be fine, it will tell you to turn the scanners off and it will also tell you which scanners are running), then google 'Disabling my running scanner'... an example of the search would be 'Disabling Norton Internet Security'.
After disabling the scanners, run qvb.exe (combofix). It would take about 10 minutes at most (unless your computer is extremely infected).
Once this is done, you should run hijackthis.exe (BUT DO NOT FIX ANYTHING THERE YET). Once you get the log file open, select all of the contents, copy it, go to this analyzer, paste it in the textarea, press Analyze, check at which ones it says 'danger' (It will have a red circle and a white 'X' in that circle), then go to hijackthis, check those that have that red circle (or 'danger') and then click 'Fix Checked' at the bottom left corner.
If you're not sure about a process/file/service that is flagged as dangerous, copy the contents of the log file and start a NEW topic about it here.
Now, what's left to be done is turning on those scanners and running them. Run them to see if ComboFix.exe (qvb.exe) missed anything, and if they did, fix them using those scanners.
Don't forget to periodically run those scanners (at least once a month, unless your PC is acting up) to make sure to keep your PC clean. And stay away from downloading iffy stuff. If you download a movie, make sure that the extension is not .exe or anything like that... that it's .avi, .mpg etc. etc.
Be weary of unzipping zipped files (.rar, .zip, etc. etc.).
Free Scanners
There are some free scanners available for download online that you can use to scan your computer. They are:
This page was published on It was last revised on
