About a year ago, I accidentally installed malware on my PC after falling for a scam on Discord. I later reinstalled my operating system without keeping any old partitions and even did it offline, so I think the malware should be gone. However, I had my Windows firewall turned off and gave the file administrator permissions. Now I'm wondering if there's a chance that the malware could still be lurking on my system. I also got a new modem recently because my internet provider offered an upgrade. Does that affect anything?
3 Answers
You're probably fine. A full reinstall would remove anything the malware left behind. Just make sure you didn't sync anything suspicious back after reinstalling, like from OneDrive.
It's highly unlikely that the malware is still on your PC. Most modern malware doesn’t even try to spread like it used to. It usually sticks to executing its payload, like stealing data, once it's installed. As long as you wiped your drive, you should be in the clear.
If you completely wiped your drive during the reinstall, then the malware should be gone, as long as you didn’t restore any infected files afterward. The modem itself has no impact on this situation.
Good point! Always check your backups to ensure there's nothing toxic there.