While having coffee this morning, I watched a virus infect my computer

| May 8, 2010 | 0 Comments

I know for some of my readers they would be scared, but for a computer repair tech, it was pretty neat to see it happen. I’ve been waiting for this day, where my computer gets infected without me doing anything or clicking on anything. (Yes, I do have protection, but I keep it limited so I can get what you folks get so I can witness it).

Here’s what happened….

I left my computer on all night doing a back up, then I went to check my hotmail email and once I clicked on an email that should have been safe to open, I saw a window pop up at the top of the hotmail window, asking for permission to download. But right after, I saw the “download installer” start moving. I didn’t give it permission or press the install button. I watched for a bit to see if it would show me what I was installing, it never came, so I cancelled the installation.

Too late. Next thing I saw pop up on my screen was “Your computer may be infected, please check your antivirus software” and I knew I got infected right then and there.

  • I didn’t click on anything
  • I didn’t install anything
  • It self-installed
  • It started running without me doing anything!

Next thing that happened was a big green shield showed up in my system tray and then POOF, a huge window popped up and starting running an antivirus check. The virus I got was “Anti spyware Soft” (I believe). I have seen this before on client’s machines, so I was familiar with it. I could not believe what had just happened though, it was crazy to see it all happen. It was crazy to actually witness what happens to my clients!

I then fixed my own virus (just like how I fix your viruses) and went on with my morning. As a repair tech, we fix our own problems. We rarely if ever have to call a “helpdesk” or “repair company” but for you folks, you probably do need help to remove these.

We fix these problems and quickly. Your best bet is to write down our phone number in case your virus takes away your internet access. Mine didn’t work after the infection.

612-865-4475

Happy Saturday, it’s really just too cold here in Minnesota today!

Tags: , ,

Category: Call That Girl's Tech Blogs

About the Author ()

Lisa Hendrickson is the owner of Call That Girl. She is an Outlook Expert and Microsoft 365 Consultant.

Leave a Reply