I've been battling a Trojan on my laptop for the past two days. It's a budget Odys model that I only use occasionally for work. Recently, Microsoft Defender flagged a Trojan, and right after that, my files started disappearing, my mouse started acting up, and the laptop became unbearably slow. I turned off the Wi-Fi and went to sleep, thinking that would help. Yesterday, I factory reset my laptop and went online again, hoping it was gone for good. But today, while in safe mode, Malwarebytes kept crashing. Eventually, I managed a scan, but just a few seconds in, my screen went dark and I panicked, shutting down my laptop. I'm worried the virus might have spread to my other devices like my phone, TV, or tablet. Can it do that?
2 Answers
A PC virus typically doesn’t spread to mobile devices since they all run on different operating systems. Just make sure when you do your reinstall, you wipe your drive completely to remove any lingering malware. How did you reinstall earlier?
Your best bet is to reinstall Windows through a USB stick. Just make sure to backup your really important files first (but not apps or games), because you’ll be wiping everything. Also, don’t forget to change your passwords and enable two-factor authentication where you can!
How do I factory reset my Wi-Fi?
I went into recovery mode and did a 'reset this PC' with cloud download, but followed up by removing everything.