86 TECH ADVISOR • MARCH 2020SECURITY SPECIAL
programs, which run in the background and constantly
watch for malware. (Another option is an on-demand
scanner, which searches for malware infections when
you open the program manually and run a scan. You
should have only one real-time antivirus program
installed at a time, but you can have many on-demand
scanners installed to run scans with multiple programs,
thereby ensuring that if one program misses something
a different one might find it.
If you think your PC is infected, we recommend
using an on-demand scanner first and then following
up with a full scan by your real-time antivirus program.
Among the free (and high-quality) on-demand scanners
available are BitDefender Free Edition, Kaspersky Virus
Removal Tool, Malwarebytes, Microsoft’s Malicious
Software Removal Tool, Avast, and SuperAntiSpyware.Step 4: Run a scan with Malwarebytes
For illustrative purposes, we’ll describe how to use
the Malwarebytes on-demand scanner. To get started,
download it. If you disconnected from the Internet for
safety reasons when you first suspected that you might
be infected, reconnect to it so you can download,
install, and update Malwarebytes; then disconnect from
the Internet again before you start the actual scanning.
If you can’t access the Internet or you can’t download
Malwarebytes on the infected computer, download it on
another computer, save it to a USB flash drive, and take
the flash drive to the infected computer.
After downloading Malwarebytes, run the set-up
file and follow the wizard to install the program. Once
the program opens, it will automatically activate a trial