Q: What Are The Symptoms Of A Malware Attack?
A: This almost entirely depends on the skill level of the malware developer. Malware crafted by a skilled developer will be invisible to the end user, and invisible to the network administrator for quite some time. There have been malware attacks against governments (who presumably have fairly qualified IT & Network Administrators) that have been active for years before being discovered.
If a malware is created by a developer of less than high skills, then the malware most likely creates problems similar to any buggy software – performance degradation, crashes, screen artifacts, the computer operating incorrectly.
This is why it is important to:
- Have a quality antivirus (antimalware) installed on every device.
- Have a quality firewall active on the network and each device.
- Never log in as an administrator (that gives administrative privileges to malware or hacker on your system).
- Enable application whitelisting. This is important because even the very best antivirus only catches 99.9% of the known malware. Whitelisting will stop the unknown from launching.
- Have your modem, router, computers, phones, and tablets put through a monthly security and maintenance audit.
