If you see this page, it is most likely because a VIPRE product detected a threat in your environment and directed you here for more information.
VIPRE blocks most threats immediately, and they do not represent any concern. However, there are a few evasive or very new kinds of threats that may still cause problems on your device(s). It is always good to use caution and immediately disconnect or shut down any devices that show symptoms.
Threat Types
The various threat types that may be reported are listed below. Following the table is additional information on how to protect yourself.
| Threat Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Adware | Although mostly benign, adware can be really annoying as it may cause popup ads to appear on your screen or browser and interrupt your work. More insidious adware may even try to track your private activities. |
| Surveillance |
Surveillance malware is adware's natural companion, as often surveillance malware is designed to track your behavior so that someone can try to sell you stuff. But other surveillance malware might try to monitor your access to things like your bank account, with the goal of directly stealing your money. At a nation-state level, surveillance malware can be used for espionage. Although nearly always bad, there are some legitimate use cases for surveillance software if, for example, you are employed at a company that needs to monitor what you do very closely for compliance purposes. If in doubt, check with your IT department. |
| Key Logger | A close cousin to surveillance software, key loggers specifically try to track everything you type. This can lead to the capture of things like the passwords you use to log in to important websites. |
| Virus | A virus is designed to infect your system and then attempt to spread to other systems - it will often add itself to your documents and some programs and may even attempt to spread over your local network. |
| Rootkit | Possibly the most insidious kind of malware, rootkits are designed to install themselves so deeply within your device's operating systems that you can't even see them - they will hide files, network connections, and any other indicators you can look at to remain stealthy. Rootkits are designed to dig deep and then stay on your system forever. |
| Trojan | A Trojan, named after the Trojan horse, is something that appears to be benign, but once you let it in, it will compromise your system. The Trojan is designed to fool you into clicking on it to start it running, after which it will attempt to install a backdoor, run ransomware, steal data, and/or perform many other possible malicious actions. |
| Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) | A PUP is something you probably don't want, but we're not quite sure. PUPs often have some legitimate reasons for being on your system but usually also have annoying, privacy-threatening, or other potentially malicious features. For example, there are many games that use pop-up ads that are classified as PUPs. |
| Dialer | A dialer is an application that can cause your computer to call expensive toll lines and run up charges. These are less common today as most people use broadband, but you may run across them occasionally |
Protect Yourself
If your system exhibits any possible symptoms of an infection or if malware protection was turned off for a while, you can perform some manual cleanup to be sure.
- If you have the ability to boot off a different drive or to mount the possibly affected drive in a different system, or if your system is unusable due to the malware, shut down your system immediately and skip to Scan on a Different System below.
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If none of the previously mentioned scenarios apply to you:
- Open the VIPRE client/agent by right-clicking on the VIPRE icon in the system tray
- Select Check for Updates to make sure your virus Threat Definitions are up to date
- If they aren't, click on the Update Now button and confirm the update in the Update Progress window
- When your Threat Definitions are up-to-date, start a manual scan of your entire system and wait for it to complete
- Please note a full system scan may take a while
- If any results are found, make sure the bad files/processes are cleaned up and re-start the scan
- Once the full system scan completes with zero results found, evaluate your system - is your computer still experiencing symptoms?
- If yes, contact Support
Scan on a Different System - Advanced Users
If you know how to boot from a different/clean drive or how to mount your infected drive into a clean system, go ahead and do so. Then, make sure VIPRE is installed on the clean system. Make sure you do not touch any files on the affected drive and follow the steps below:
- Open the VIPRE client/agent by right-clicking on the VIPRE icon in the system tray
- Select Check for Updates to make sure your virus Threat Definitions are up to date
- If they aren't, click on the Update Now button and confirm the update in the Update Progress window
- When your Threat Definitions are up-to-date, start a manual scan of your entire system and wait for it to complete
- Please note a full system scan may take a while
- If any results are found, make sure the bad files/processes are cleaned up and re-start the scan
- Once the full system scan completes with zero results found, evaluate your system - is your computer still experiencing symptoms?
- If yes, contact Support
Find Help
If you need any help, contact our Technical Support team for assistance. We are here to help!
If you discover something that appears to be malicious that VIPRE does not stop or a legitimate application that VIPRE thinks is malicious, tell us about it on our Submit a Threat page, where you can report things like blocked websites, false positives, and missed threats.