What to do if your PC gets hacked ?

You have opened an attachment in a email received, and now your PC (Desktop computer or Laptop) is very much slow and several strange things are happening. Applications are just crying for opening, internet is slows down up to its lowest limits and you are stuck in it, and its just first day of week only. Your PC has turned into a Zombie, but how to get it back to normal without losing everything.

Malware and Phishing attacks are very common type of attacks these days and if your computer is latest victim of
these attacks then you need to take few necessary steps to keep your files and important data to  be destroyed or to be used by anyone else before its very late. There are few basic steps you need to perform to get your PC back to normal.

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Very first step in this direction is to just disconnect your PC from any type of network, i.e. unplug your Internet connection & LAN connection i.e. physical cable or Wi-Fi connection immediately, Laptops often have dedicated buttons or keys on keyboard to keep Wi-Fi on or off. Do not rely on software/s managing these connections, as they may be victim of hackers.

Next step to take is just to remove your hard disk from PC and attach it to some other computer as non bootable drive. Use other PC's antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit and anti-malware scanners to ensure detection and removal of any infection from the file system on your hard drive. Precisely identify your important data like your documents, photos, videos and other personal files on hard disk and copy all to any external device like USB hard disk, DVD or any other clean internal hard disk etc.

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Now install your hard disk back to PC and completely wipe it using re-partition and format. Install fresh operating system using trusted media disk and apply all important and security updates. Re-install and update antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit and anti-malware, you can use individual applications or use one which have all scanners built in. Better go for some commercial version for better protection.


Copy your data back to hard disk and go for a complete system scan for better protection of your system. Do not forget to make a full backup of your important data to some external disks. Try to make a habit to backup your data or use some backup tool or some external backup hard disk for easy and safe future recovery.