What to Do if Your Computer Has a Virus
What are the symptoms of a virus?
Some common symptoms that may indicate your computer is infected with a virus are:
- Unusual messages or displays on your monitor.
- Unusual sounds or music played at random times.
- Your system has less available memory than usual.
- A disk or volume name has changed.
- Programs or files are suddenly missing.
- Unknown programs or files are created.
- Some of your files become corrupted or suddenly do not work properly.
If you think your computer has a virus infection:
- Make sure your virus protection is up-to-date. Learn how to get the latest virus protection update:
- Scan your computer or disks for viruses. Learn how to scan for viruses using:
- If you have a macro virus, learn how to remove macro viruses from your Mac or Windows computer.
- If you need help getting rid of a virus:
- Contact the Help Center: 552-HELP (2-HELP from on-campus), help.center@bc.edu.
- Faculty and Staff: You can also contact your Technology Consultant (TC). Who is my TC?
- Students: You can also visit the Walk-In Help Desk in O'Neill 248 next to the Campus Technology Resource Center (CTRC).
- If you got a virus from an email, learn whom to inform when you get an email virus.
- If you got a virus from a shared file, inform the person(s):
- who have access to the file on the network.
- to whom you have emailed the infected file.
- from whom you originally got the infected file.