Is your computer acting strange?  Are you getting wierd error messages?  Are strange files downloading on your hard drive?  Has your computer developed a mind of its own?  Computer running slower than your old Comodore 64?  You very well might be infected with malware, such as a Trojan Horse, keylogger, spyware, or computer virus. 

This malicious software can certainly be more than just a mere annoyance.  It can be downright scary and a real threat to your Internet security and privacy. It can spread through your system like a virus(pardon the pun), corrupting your computer. It can actually lead you to completely losing all data on your hard drive. Not only that, malware can lead you to become the next victim of identity theft, one of the fastest growing crimes in Canada and the USA.

In fact, since 2003 the vast majority of widespread viruses and worms have been designed to take one-hundred percent control of the user's computer for black market exploitation.  They might very well have more control of your computer than you do.   Infected "zombie computers" are used to send that annoying spam that we all love to hate.  On a more serious note, the`spam could contain illegal content such as child porn.  Your computer could even be used to engage in distributed denial of service attacks as a form of extortion.

Malware is a malicious form of software which is actually designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. As mentioned above, malware includes Trojans, keyloggers, spyware, worms, computer viruses, and other malicious software.

With the explosive growth of the Internet and home user broadband, malware is a huge and growing problem.  There was believe it or not as much malware was produced in 2007 alone as the previous twenty years altogether.

Ready to throw your computer out the window and cancel your broadband Internet access forever?  Thankfully, there are steps that can be taken to detect and remove malware before it does anymore harm. 

• If you at all suspect your computer is infected with malware immediately stop shopping, banking, and other online activities that involve user names, passwords, or other sensitive personal information.
• Have antivirus and anti-spyware software installed on your computer.  Ensure that they are kept up-to-date, to detect and remove the latest malware.  It is good to know though that most Internet security software these days updates automatically.  Remember though that antivirus and anti-spyware software is only as good as the last update.  There are actually free antivirus and anti-spyware software available for download on the Internet.
• Have a firewall installed on your computer.  Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 includes a firewall.  Ensure that your firewall is activated.
• Think you are infected with a keylogger, also known as a keystroke logger?  Visit How To Prevent, Detect, and Remove Keystroke Loggers
• Wipe your hard drive and reinstall your operating system.  The downside of this is that you will permanently delete everything else on your hard drive as well.  The upside is that you will have the peace of mind that all malware and any other objectionable content has been deleted from your hard drive.  It is kinda like giving your computer a "fresh start".   By the way, formatting your hard drive will not permanently delete data and files, including malware. Visit How To Delete Your Hard Drive to learn how to permanently delete your hard drive.

Malware is indeed a growing threat to both your Internet security and privacy. However, it sure is good to know that there are ways to detect and remove any malware infecting your computer.