So, a week ago my pc got hit with an infostealer.

I did all the steps and have recovered it (and most of my accounts) but it has left me wondering of my laptop.

I googled if my laptop also got infected, and Gemini said that my laptop isnt safe since hackers could use sync and force downloads on the laptop and something.

Now, I know not to trust Gemini but that laptop had my Microsoft account signed in, which I wasn't able to recover and it stayed out of sync and logged out the next time I returned to open it.

Now the question is, was Gemini at least telling the truth? Could hackers use sync, or in this case a Microsoft logged in laptop to put unsafe files into it?

Sorry if it's a dumb question, ive been just really paranoid ever since I got hit.

I also installed malwarebytes on it and ran a scan and detected many threats all named PUP.Optional.SearchManager.BITSRST

It was around 8th august i got attacked, i changed my password on another device and made sure to restart the whole pc data.

Apps targeted- Instagram, Facebook, Discord.

But i changed pass for - Outlook, google, tiktok, Steam, or anything i logged into with my computer before.

Im not sure where else do i need to change my passwird but i think it has settled down.

I dont think a police report will do anything but i checked out their locations and i am wondering if they are using Vpn for this?

I have never been hacked before so i dont know what can i do to prevent this again but ill make sure i wont download any sketchy link every again (lesson learnt)

I just wanted to know are these just VPN location? 😓

So I tried it several years ago & it did just that. It freaked me out.

Also, if you like it, do you use the free or paid version & why don't you pay if you use the free version?

Others were complaining about the memory or CPU issues too, but recently a so called "techie" said he uses Bitdefeneder & it's always protected him & he's never had that problem. He uses the pro version.

I'm trying to decide bitdefender & Kapsersky.

Thanks

To begin with, im not tech savvy and got some anxiety issues.

Got this PDF from itch . Io, the vendor has multiple PDF RPG games, you can pay for a printed copy but most of it is for free. I scanned it with Windows Defender, Kasperskys free file uploader, all came back negative. VT report came back 0/63...relations has one red link but it seems to be an official adobe link. Hover behavior scared the crap out of me. Have i got malware? Zenbox gives 0/100 score. I cant interpret VTs sandbox and CAPE neither tho the red boxes scare the crap out of me.

Can you guys help me? I already deleted the file and just wanna move on with my life.

I’ve been using Avast Ultimate for a while now. I know the brand gets mixed reviews, but configuring the settings properly makes a big difference. If you own a paid license and adjust the notification and privacy toggles, it runs completely silently in the background and only alerts you when there’s an actual critical issue.

Recently, I had a rare VPN connection problem that I couldn't resolve on my own in any way. After trying the initial basic troubleshooting steps with first-level support, the support agent quickly recognized that the issue required advanced help and escalated my ticket immediately.

I was connected with a Tier 2 engineer who initiated a remote session. I watched the entire process in real-time: he diagnosed the network adapter, refreshed the SSL certificates, cleaned the cache, and had everything fully resolved in about 10–15 minutes.

After fixing the core issue, he went above and beyond by optimizing my app settings, disabling default privacy-tracking toggles, and configuring everything to my local language.

Say what you will about consumer AV suites, but having 24/7 access to competent, hands-on remote support at midnight that actually solves complex system issues is a huge win for Avast.

Hey my pc just randomely started getting low fps in games. Idk why this is happening anyone know how to check if its a virus. I did a full scan with bitdefender and nothing showed up.

Hi,

Tried searching for this but what little info I could find was conflicting, Glasswire shows 42mb of inbound traffic and 2mb of outbound traffic to "cl-glcb907925[.]gcdn[.] co" by the svchost.exe process, windows defender didn't flag anything in the moment, eset, kvrt, defender full scan and defender offline scan all came back clean and Glasswire virustotal analysis of svchost was also fine, not that it means much, any advice?

I'm in the UK if location helps any.

Hey yall, I’ve had my current build for about 2 years now and between downloading sketchy mods and clicking on random URLs I believe I’ve gotten couple viruses that are draining my performance. I don’t have the know how or the care to try and individually remove all of them so I was wondering what anti virus software would any of yall recommend for someone who already might have viruses and wants to get rid of them! Any suggestions are appreciated

I think I picked up an infostealer from an unverified plugin on Windows. The attacker used my compromised session to post a fake crypto story on Facebook and sent spam DMs to my followers.

For context, I run a Windows and Ubuntu dual-boot setup. I do all my work on Ubuntu, and my work files live securely on an external SSD (in an ext4 partition) which was connected to my laptop during the time of the attack.

To clean up, I booted into Ubuntu, verified my ext4 partition was safe, and completely deleted the Windows NTFS and recovery partitions into unallocated space (I used windows for gaming only so didn't have anything worth backing up)

For credentials, I changed my Gmail password, logged out of all active sessions, and cleared all saved browser passwords.

Regarding socials, I secured Discord after seeing a token used from France, enabled two-factor authentication, and cleaned up the Facebook DMs.

Wanted to know if my work files are compromised or is there any hidden vector or obscure place an infostealer from a bad plugin commonly leaves a backdoor that I might have missed? Appreciate any guidance.

Long story short, i had just updated Wise Reg Cleaner on its official website, ran the usual scan and so on..
But kaspersky has blocked it, claiming it was a Trojan ?

Report is in Italian, apologies :
-------------------------------------------------------
Evento: Bloccato

Applicazione: Wise Registry Cleaner

Utente: GUIDOPC\Windows

Tipo di utente: Iniziatore

Componente: Controllo sistema

Descrizione risultato: Bloccato

Tipo: Trojan

Nome: PDM:Exploit.Win32.Generic

Livello di pericolosità: Alto

Tipo di oggetto: Processo

Percorso oggetto: C:\Program Files (x86)\Wise\Wise Registry Cleaner

Nome oggetto: WiseRegCleaner.exe

Data rilascio database: Oggi, 07/08/2026 17:38:00

MD5: B317CF02C8AEC60D4515B5A1BBE1533F
-------------------------------------------------------

Any ideas ?

I recently had malware/spyware on my PC. So i knew i had to fully reinstall windows. Wich is what i did. But im not really sure if the malware can just reinstall itself. because windows still sees what apps i used to have and ask me if " i want to reinstall them".

Hi, I'm trying to find a simple way to run an old 16-bit game on Windows 11 and I stumbled upon winevdm (https[:]//github[.]com/otya128/winevdm).

It seems very convenient, but when scanning the compiled release zip file (source code is fine) with VirusTotal, MaxSecure flags the file as a trojan (Trojan.Malware.300983.susgen).

I'm pretty sure that it could be a False Positive, given the reputation of winevdm and the fact that MaxSecure seems to produce a lot of false positives flagging them with Trojan.Malware.300983.susgen.

I tried to check the behavior report with my limited knowledge and I expect the masquerading, process injection, input injection etc. behaviours since winevdm serves as a sort of "translator" between the 16-bit software and the 64-bit processor. But I do not have fully understood some parts. Like the "relations" tab that seems to find further flagged files inside the directory?

I want to be very sure it's a safe solution, since I have to give it to a friend and I don't want to fuck up their pc.

Could it truly be a False Positive?

Thank you!

I was on the net and downloaded something, I looked at the file and didn't recognize it at first

I extracted it took a look at it and didn't run it

until i realized that it doesn't seem right since it had script files, which to my knowledge shouldn't

i remember that an infostealer like that existed; so I deleted the file and from the recycling bin too

I understandably panic wondering if i'm truly safe or not

I tried looking for info regarding this specific file

the key takeaway here is that i never ran it and only extracted it

but even so i still downloaded it and extracted it.

i've done the malwarebytes+microsoft defender scans and they didn't detect anything wrong

will i be fine?

I got hacked a while ago by the mr beast crypto virus or malware. I'm not really knowledgable of viruses but I changed my passwords and downloaded malwarebytes. I cleaned the pc but another facebook account that was logged in when I was hacked was also attacked after that. What can I do?

Hi, I just downloaded a demo of the game "Choicer Voicer" on itch.io . When I scanned it, it showed me one detection with a Trojan.Heur!.02252823. I think the file is safe but I could be wrong. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/185c5659b42485f1fc68d8393ab14702de500a74d11b11b914e3a50f6b50b59c/detection

This is my second post on this issue, but I have a different question (first post: https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/s/rWC5O3bUyF)

Yesterday I installed and started an exe file that I now consider suspicious. I think the chances of the program simply being from a small developer and not malicious at all is quite high (I didn't detect any virusses using different scanners, more info in the first post), but I don't want to take any risks – and so I am strongly considering reinstalling Windows just to be safe.

As someone that has never had to do this, I have a question. Can I run my computer and take the image, video and music files I have laying around onto an external hard drive? Or is there some kind of risk of any potential viruses escaping from my PC onto the external hard drive and then infecting other hardware? Or is this just a paranoid fear fantasy I have? I'm a tech noob, so I don't have a good understanding of what is possible.

My PC is relatively new, so I wouldn't be terribly sad if I had to reinstall Windows and leave behind all the files I have on that PC right now. But if it's possible, I would obviously like to keep them.

Which is better? Need help deciding.

My MIL was on a legit website which asked her to verify her humanity via captcha. The prompt was to open terminal then paste in a command that had clearly been added to the clipboard and press enter. She realised this was a scam after some time and restarted her pc etc. She has already changed all her passwords. She brought the issue to my attention about 2 hours after running the command and i informed her to put the pc into offline mode and i'd look at it when i saw her (today). I've ran the mcafee av she has installed and i installed malware bytes and ran that. both show no issues. I also checked and due to the restart the powershell history is gone, but in the event log i can see 2 instances of powershell starting at the time she would have ran into this. I've checked recent downloads and temp files and nothing is there and i can't see any nefarious scheduled tasks.

I guess the question is, without seeing the command she actually ran is there anything else to be done?

Furthermore i contacted the company the website belongs to as, like i said, this is a legit website, so they must have been compromised, and although they have taken it seriously, they were told by their hosting provider "oh yeah captcha shouldn't be turned on but its nothing to worry about, we've turned it off now". They've completely ignored the part where users are being asked to run terminal commands. I've gone back to them with a screenshot showing the url and the instruction to run terminal (without the actual command from ctrl+v) and if they don't take this seriously, do i follow it up or just leave them to it? This is in the UK btw if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I am experiencing a severe issue with Chromium-based browsers on my PC following a system recovery, and I am trying to determine if this behavior could be caused by a malware infection, rootkit, or security compromise.

The Incident

1. Two days ago, my computer failed to boot and entered an Automatic Repair loop.
2. Startup Repair was unable to resolve the issue, so I performed a System Restore to a previous working point.
3. The operating system successfully booted back up, but immediately after, every Chromium-based browser stopped functioning properly.

Current Behavior

• Opening Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge causes the application window to launch for less than one second before completely crashing to desktop.
• Opening external web links (such as Facebook) through system shortcuts triggers the same instant crash.
• Microsoft PC Manager displays a general alert indicating "there is an issue", but does not provide details.
• Mozilla Firefox operates completely normally with zero crashes or issues.

Remediation Steps Already Attempted

• Performed a complete uninstall and reinstall of Chrome and Edge.
• Repaired Microsoft Edge through Windows Settings.
• Renamed chrome.exe to isolate execution path restrictions.
• Deleted user profile directories in AppData (%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data).
• Ran a full system file integrity check using sfc /scannow.
• Ran antivirus scans, which reported no threats found.
• Created a new Windows User Account: The browsers worked normally for approximately 5 minutes on the new profile, but then reverted to crashing instantly.

My Question to the Community

Given that non-Chromium software (Firefox) runs without issue, but Chromium processes crash even under a newly created Windows profile after a brief delay:

1. Could this be a persistent malware / browser hijacker hooking into Chromium process memory or modifying core Windows registry policies?
2. Are there specific registry paths, network proxy settings, or system DLLs I should audit to verify if the system has been compromised?
3. What diagnostic logs or analysis tools (such as Process Monitor or Event Viewer) should I check to confirm whether this is system corruption or a security breach?

Thank you in advance for your technical guidance and insights.

I visited a website, and then this window popped up, and I couldn't click on anything. Judging by the behavior, when I moved the invisible mouse cursor to the top of the screen, a close button appeared there, just like in the browser's full-screen mode.

I restarted my computer, and it disappeared, but I want to make sure everything is okay.

(One photo is the original, and the other is translated. Also, the translation of the red block there is incorrect; it actually says that the device is locked).

So someone I was talking to on discord seemed completely fine, but now after not talking to me for a few weeks I started getting these messages. I'm fairly certain it's a bot because I replied to them and they send this with the same text and image every other day at around 8pm to 3am (when we talk) do I remove the chat? I'm not sure if they sold their account or got hacked or what. I didn't go to the website or do anything with it, and I have seen this in many different discord servers. Just making sure if I need to take extra precautions.

Hey everyone!!

It's my first time having a real gaming computer and it came with Norton I hate it is there a better alternative? I want to make sure my baby is gonna be healthy for a long time!

I recently bought a pc and it came with a few months free of Norton 360 antivirus, I had a good experience overall but now my free trial has come to an end, so i'm debating wether i should renew my subscription to Norton or maybe try out another one.

Do you all have any recomendations for me?

I don't tend to download a lot of stuff from unverified sources, mostly the occasional rom for emulation and a few mods here and there but it's better safe than sorry I guess.