How to tell if your computer has a virus or Trojan virus

It is not always obvious when your computer is infected with a virus or a Trojan or other internet malware. But help is at hand with Kaspersky antivirus software or internet security software.

What are some virus symptoms?

Some viruses are easy to spot. They may cause unexpected messages to appear on your screen or may start moving or deleting your files.

Other types of virus will copy standard system processes, making them more difficult to notice.

Sometimes a virus may make your system behave in a way that could also be the result of a computer bug, driver glitch, or even a hardware fault.

Typical symptoms of a virus are:

  • Computer reboots without warning
  • Computer crashes or hangs
  • Computer runs slowly

Other results of viruses might be:

  • Software hangs or crashes
  • Sound problems
  • Hard disk data corrupted or deleted
  • Hard disk won't boot (start)
  • Strange error messages

How to find a virus on your PC or Mac

Most virus software is designed to avoid detection – and to take your most confidential data without your knowledge.

The easiest way is to tell if you’ve got a computer virus is to run a free virus scan of your hard drive.

Antivirus software will then place a computer virus, trojan virus or infected files in a safe quarantine.

This ensures that it can do no further damage to your computer. From there you can delete the files permanently.