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You have probably heard the name “Trojan”. In history, it used to refer to the sneaky wooden horse used to trick the Trojans into letting the Greek army inside their fortress during the infamous Trojan War. In computing, this term refers to the largest malware family known to users worldwide. The virus to be discussed – Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0, is a typical member of that malicious group. You can read everything about this particular virus and its entire family in the article below. We hope that we will help you in dealing with this awful cyber threat.
Trojans
Trojans are the most popular cyber threats that have ever existed. These viruses can have varying functions and ways of getting distributed. However, their group is constantly growing with new members and around 70% + of all malware infections worldwide are caused by various Trojan horse viruses. Despite the different distribution methods and the different ways of functioning, what makes all these viruses one and the same family is the fact that all of them DO find a weakness of your PC, either a system-related one, or a program-based one, and use that weak spot to invade your computer. Also, such malware is usually used for achieving an evil purpose (the most common ones will be listed below).
What could Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0 (or any other Trojan) do to your computer and to you, personally?
Such a virus may be programmed to complete a variety of dishonest tasks, once inside your system. For instance, the most usual ways in which Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0 could work are the following:
- It could be used for draining your PC’s resources. Such viruses are often exploited for turning computers into bots. Such a bot could then start sending spam or mining crypto currencies. Also, many other options are possible, depending on what the hackers behind this Trojan want to use your system resources for.
- Trojans might just be instruments for destruction: This might sound scary. However, hackers sometimes have fun while destroying data of other users or crashing their systems. If this is the aim of the virus, the hackers night not have anything personal against you, this is a sort of spa therapy for them.
- Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0 could act as a data thief (both personally and work-related): This usage is also awful as both your work-related and private data could become a victim of this piece of malicious software. Such data includes banking account credentials, social media accounts and all your other accounts that concern your identity. There have been times when an entire identity has been hijacked with the help of a Trojan horse virus.
- Spreading malware: In fact, this is one of the most widely-spread usages. All Trojans could be simply transportation means for other malware, such as Ransomware. Ransomware-based viruses themselves are truly dangerous, however, with the help of Trojans, their passage to the inside of your system is ensured and nothing good could come out of that.
- Spying: Some hackers could exhibit psychotic behavior. They might develop viruses with the single purpose of watching other users 24/7, studying their habits; and even proceeding with physical harassment. This is one of the most horrible usages of Trojans.
How could you end up catching such a serious threat?
In fact, Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0 could be distributed in a great variety of ways, too. Of course, not all of them could be discussed in one article. That is why we have chosen the most common sources and have included them in the list below.
- Spam emails and their infected attachments: All emails, actually, could carry such malware. However, it is most likely to lurk inside your spam folder. Our sincere advice is to never open any letter that you cannot recognize, no matter whether it is inside your Inbox, or in the Spam Directory. What’s more, avoid downloading and opening any attachments, as even images and .doc files could include the virus. In fact, in this case, the Trojan usually accompanies Ransomware. Mind your activities inside your email and stay safe!
- Fake advertisements you may come across on the web: Sometimes Trojans come to you once you click on a malicious pop-up that you have found on the web. We recommend that you simply avoid all the ads that you see on the Internet.
- Illegal web pages, sharing software, movies, videos and others: All illegal sources of something could be Trojans sources. Make sure that you only use reliable sources of data and software.
What about the removal of Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0?
It is possible to get such a virus removed from your PC. Just be especially careful and use a trustworthy Removal Guide like the one below the chart in this article.
Remove Win.Trojan.Toa-5370166-0
Some of the steps will likely require you to exit the page. Bookmark it for later reference.
Reboot in Safe Mode (use this guide if you don’t know how to do it).
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Hold together the Start Key and R. Type appwiz.cpl –> OK.
You are now in the Control Panel. Look for suspicious entries. Uninstall it/them. If you see a screen like this when you click Uninstall, choose NO:
Type msconfig in the search field and hit enter. A window will pop-up:
Startup —> Uncheck entries that have “Unknown” as Manufacturer or otherwise look suspicious.
- Remember this step – if you have reason to believe a bigger threat (like ransomware) is on your PC, check everything here.
Hold the Start Key and R – copy + paste the following and click OK:
notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts
A new file will open. If you are hacked, there will be a bunch of other IPs connected to you at the bottom. Look at the image below:
If there are suspicious IPs below “Localhost” – write to us in the comments.
Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC simultaneously. Go to the Processes Tab. Try to determine which ones are a virus. Google them or ask us in the comments.
WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!
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- This step is very important, because you can catch other threats (like Ransomware and Spyware) while looking for the Adware process.
Right click on each of the virus processes separately and select Open File Location. End the process after you open the folder, then delete the directories you were sent to.
Type Regedit in the windows search field and press Enter.
Once inside, press CTRL and F together and type the virus’s Name. Right click and delete any entries you find with a similar name. If they don’t show this way, go manually to these directories and delete/uninstall them:
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—–Random Directory. It could be any one of them – ask us if you can’t discern which ones are malicious.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—-Windows—CurrentVersion—Run– Random
HKEY_CURRENT_USER—-Software—Microsoft—Internet Explorer—-Main—- Random
If all the prior steps fail to help you or you have reason to believe your system is exposed to threats like Ransomware, we advise you to download a professional scanner and remover.
Remember to leave us a comment if you run into any trouble!