How to Combat Malware

To try to aviod and combat malware, one should keep software up to date to help mitigate current software vulnerabilities and bugs, install anti-malware software and firewall protection. The anti-malware software should at least detect, quarantine, and remove multiple types of malware. Lastly, one should exercise vigilance and discretion when downloading files/programs that seen shady or unfamiliar (Lord, 2012). As for where one should start, it depends on where one is in regard to their relationship to malware vis-a-vis are they dealing with a preexisting system that may have malwarealready, or are they wanting to be proactive with a new system which is to be installed. The first step when dealing with preexisting systems is ensuring that the system is clean and free of malware. If there is a suspected infestation of malware, the first thing one must do is disconnect it from the internet, and boot the PC into safe mode. This makes sure that only the essential functions of a machine are running and that the malware is not active, making it more easily removed (Geier, 2016). Next, one needs to detect malware. To do this, you obviously need malware detection software for which there are two types: real-time and on demand. Real-time software is always running in the background, while on demand is manually opened when needed. There is no reason to have multiple real-time softwares installed, but it is good to open multiple on demand detection software so if one program misses something, another wont. Good options for on demand malware detection are BitDefender Free Edition, Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool, Malwarebytes, Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool, Avast, and SuperAntiSpyware (Geier, 2016). In addition to detecting malware through software, one can detect manually through observing unusual and unauthorized behavior of unfamiliar programs; essentially, anything weird (Zeltser, 2015).

Containment, Eradication, and Recovery

After detection, one must carry out three key steps: containment, eradication, and recovery. Containment is simply taking the nessessary step to, well, contain the malware. This includes what one may have already done, like disconnecting from the internet and booting into safe mode. In addition, this involves maybe halting the activity of programs that the malware is associated with (Zeltser, 2015). Malware can dig its self deep into an OS, and removing it results in some damage most of the time. This is why it is important to download files onto an external storage devise so that, if your, for example, Windows OS is curropted, information can be recovered (Geier, 2016). After the malware is removed, the process of rebiulding your system and using backup files would, of course, constitute the recovery phase.