I have received calls every day at our Denver Computer Repair shop concerning PC viruses from troubled individuals that desire to know what they can do to remove the virus(es) and spyware, or far better put, malware (malicious software) from their laptop or computer. Our initial reaction is always to guarantee their immediate security, so we ask them questions like:
“Is your machine powered on and are you connected to the net?”
We ask this to ensure that the virus just isn't transmitting their personal data back to its host (the hacker that wrote the malware application), and if so, we ask them to at least disable their world-wide-web connection by unplugging their ethernet (data) cable from their PC or wireless router, or god forbid they're still using dial-up, then disconnect the phone line from their PC, of which all action will terminate their connection to the net and cease any achievable communication between the virus/malware and their host.
“What are you running for security software? If yes, is it a free of charge version or paid version, and is your license existing?” (e.g. anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, etc. software such as AVG, Norton, Avast, Panda, McAfee, CA, etc.)
This helps us establish how badly their machine is infected. Let’s face it, none of these security softwares are infallible, but we try to put our ideal foot forward when protection our networks, information and PC’s. If they tell us that they're not running any security software or it's expire, we know that the machine is swimming with quite a few viruses appropriate off the bat.
“Are you able to obtain an online connection?”
-> This helps us decide no matter if or nor a remote session would even be achievable, or do we have to physically need to have the pc in our possession to conduct a appropriate virus removal. Also it helps us figure out how badly infiltrated their personal computer is with viruses.
An Appropriate virus removal….hmm…that brings me to the theme of this blog posting. Every kid available with a screw driver along with a laptop or computer that thinks they know even a little about computer repair, most of which are living in their parents basement, is on the web advertising his or her services (mostly on Craigslist.com and Google/Yahoo & Bing Maps given that it really is cost-free to advertise there) claiming that they're some kind of expert.
They undercut the market since to them making $50 - $100 in a day is still a great deal of money.
They don’t have any technical certifications.
Most of which are still in high school or just barely graduated (if they graduated at all), and even more have zero college or formal education, and definitely no technical training.
They don’t carry any sort of insurance, so when they botch the job and lose all your information you as a consumer have zero recourse.
Most importantly: They don’t truly understand Virus Removal and how to do it correctly!
Buyer's Beware
We as a company are constantly interviewing technicians and looking for the greatest of the finest technicians. As such, we have a pretty steady flow of resumes coming in through our recruitment email. I personally review each and every single one of these resumes - most of which get tossed out. Occasionally we do receive resumes that look promising and merit at least an initial investigatory phone call - which I myself place. When conducting these initial interview calls, we begin to drill down on the technical aspects of laptop or computer repair and networking as a start to begin to judge what the candidates true technical knowledge and encounter are, and one of the first topics we discuss is virus removal.
10 times out of 10, the candidate will state that they really understand virus removal and it truly is no problem for them. Then the conversation continues and we ask them to walk us through a typical virus removal process and we then discover about 9.5 times out of 10 that the candidate really doesn’t get how to do a simple, or a complex (or thorough) virus removal. It really is not as simple as most people think. Typically unless someone has been trained by a technician who really knows what they're doing, they themselves really don’t know the correct tools to use, or how to use them correctly (e.g. the anti-virus softwares that really work, how to effectively use a hard drive adapter kit so you don’t boot into windows but can read the drive and run virus scans, how to use Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking effectively to make sure success, etc.)
Even more importantly, most don’t get that we first and foremost have to be concerned with any sensitive information on the customer’s hard drive as a priority to recover, then worry about the virus removal process. For most customers the data on their hard drive is a priority, and losing that information would be devastating. As such, we constantly prioritize the data recovery and include questions surrounding this topic in our list of questions when we are “getting our arms around” the problem initially.
Lastly, most techs available will only run one (or perhaps) two anti-virus applications on a computer, find some viruses, removal them, and they think they are all done - when in fact, they have only removed a minority of the malware on a hard drive and most likely only remnants of the malware, not the entire virus and it most likely will return in some fashion . These are the techs that will tell you they can do a virus removal in an hour or two. To truly do a thorough cleaning of a hard drive the proper way, you must run at least 4+ applications on your hard drive - which brings me back to the point that to do a proper virus removal takes anywhere from a minimum of 3 hours, to as long as 24 hours depending on the depth of infection, how a lot of files are on the hard drive and how powerful the machine is from a hardware standpoint.
Make certain that you research any Denver Computer Repair company that you call on before hiring a technician to come out.
No comments:
Post a Comment