My coworkers always call on me for IT help and I am usually happy to oblige..stick out my chest and slide into their chairs to take on the issues even though I’m only guessing most of the time. I know some but they know less….much less; my façade is reasonably secure.

Although I am not accustomed to the PC platform, I gamely sat down at the Compaq the other morning, tapped the keys and jumped out of my skin when a pop up shrieked at me like something out of a horror movie. After a half hour of this I felt like a vampire slayer. I wanted to find out where Norton was (he’d been dumped apparently) but the virus did not want me asking. Sensing there was a killer on the case it pulled out its arsenal of tricks, messages, screams, redirects and blocks.

I used my trusty Mac laptop as a guide to the internet geekdoms where I learned what I was up against, and what I needed to do to combat the beast. The only fix it seemed was to download Malwarebytes Anti Malware, and the PC virus was adamant I would never download it let alone install it.

I am tenacious. Don’t ever tell me I can’t do something. Take THAT virus!

I downloaded the Malwarebytes program on my laptop, burned it to a disc and then unplugged the internet, installed the program and it scanned the hard drive for 2 1/2 hours. The virus had infected 584 files, hosts, and other things I don’t understand.

I deleted the quarantined malware and tentatively opened the browser but the pop-up shrieked at me again and immediately directed me first to Goggle (not Google), then Gala.com, where it invited me to install a plethora of useless anti-spy ware. I cleared the cache, reset the browser to original settings, downloaded and paid for the real-time protection disc,  (worth the $44.00 CDN) installed it and, with fingers crossed, gleefully concluded that the virus was gone. And blocked from returning!

I’m hailed as a heroine among my coworkers….(but they’d never admit to that). Not a bad outcome for a first time encounter, even if I did have to spend seven hours of my working day in battle!