How to Detect Malware: 5 Basic Signs of Malware Infection

Computers are already complicated enough that sometimes they fail in performing exactly what we want. The strange behavior of computer may often be a fluke, but sometimes it may also be the warning sign of malware infection. If your computer is repeating any of these behaviors from quite sometime, chances are higher that it's infected from malware:

1. Popup ads are shown even if no browser window is open: Many of the latest malware programs don't behave like this because of the smart programming, but this behavior is still found in many older malware programs. Adware programs bombard the user with popup ads even if no browser window is open. Sometimes those ads may include links for selling any product or service while other times they may include links to malicious sites, which may drop even more malware in your computer.
2. Unnecessary redirects: Not all browser redirects are malicious, but if you try opening Google, Facebook or Twitter but get redirected to somewhere else then certainly your PC is in trouble. Sometimes redirects may be more subtle and complicated in nature. For example, a banking Trojan may redirect you to a fraudulent site that looks same as your bank's original site. In such cases the only clue that you may see is the URL in address bar.
3. A security program that you didn't install starts showing security warnings: The business of distributing fake antivirus programs is very lucrative. Such fake antivirus programs are often distributed and installed in our computers through drive-by downloads and other sneaky techniques. Once these programs enter our PC, they start showing scary warnings about made-up threats. Needless to say that they require a license fees for cleaning our PC, and cleaning with these antiviruses is often quite smoother because in reality they're not doing anything.
4. Posts that you didn't write start appearing on social media profiles: Malwares also target Facebook and other social media websites and start posting fake information from your account on them. In most cases they post inflammatory statements with links. So if you see some posts that you didn't update from your social media account then your computer may be under the influence of malware.
5. You can't use common system tools: Anyone who's a smart computer user will get the smell of malware infection quickly and will try to justify his doubts by looking into Task Manager or Registry Editor. But if you can't access any of these tools and see a message that says Administrator has disabled this option then it may be a self-defense attempt of malware.