HOW TO FIND AN INFECTED COMPUTER

  Here r the symptoms of an infected computer

1. slow system starting
2. high cpu usage
3. high ram usage
4. system hangs

The first thing u should do is to open the task manager.U can open it by right clicking on the task bar and select it or press ctrl+alt+del.


In the task manager u can see the performance,process etc.


My XP task manager looks like this

Now u can see the CPU and RAM usage. Initially XP has less CPU usage.The RAM usage is only 200mb.If the cpu usage is constantly 100% or the ram usage is high then it is infected.

We can find the virus easily by checking the processes.If any process is using high cpu or ram then that is a virus.

Sometimes svchost.exe may be using high cpu and ram.This is not a virus.

Some common process in XP are csrss.exe, ctfmon.exe, explorer.exe, lsass.exe.

services.exe, smss.exe, spoolsv.exe, svchost.exe, system ,system idle process ,taskmgr.exe ,

winlogon.exe.

If we start an application then its process also runs.EG:chrome.exe, firefox.exe, hitman.exe etc

Any process except this using high cpu or ram can be a virus.

We can end this process by rt clicking.A warning msg will open,select yes. 

After this we have to end the start up of virus.For this click start->run->type msconfig

Search for the process, that is virus.Disable it by clicking it.then click ok.Restart ur system.

If this does not stop the virus we have to find the virus file.It is located in the c:\ or system drive.

In C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINDOWS\system32 we can find the virus file.