My First Experience With a Trojan Virus

I used to think that pain worse than heartbreak was losing food or having a splinter but no, not until the recent Trojan Rendezvous on my laptop. That was when I knew pain, pain that made me see red and nearly lose my ability to think straight.

The backstory was I began to notice certain changes in my laptop. Well, not the laptop itself but the data it consumed. It started with consuming 25 GB Monthly, that is like 1 GB daily. I only write and use Canva with my laptop, there is nothing else I do. So 1 GB daily was ridiculous but then I asked around and I was told by some tech guys that it was about right. According to them, 25 GB monthly was okay. So, I relaxed. What I forgot was that they are tech guys. I am just a fine girl trying to make a living through Hive and some other gigs. Hardly anything I do is “techy”.

Anyway, I let it go and then it became glaring mad. 5 GB would finish in less than one hour. I attributed this to miscalculation and thought the solution would be to increase my data subscription and so, I got a mi-fi (since I am the only person using the internet in my house) and loaded it with two months of data subscription (130 GB - almost $13).

You can imagine my horror when this sub finished in 6 days! Six! I knew something was wrong then. First, I called the Agent in charge of my MIFI plan and he did a background check and was shocked because there were some “heavy activities” which I knew wasn’t me. So, next was to change the password to my Mi-fi and check history to block access to any intruders. I knew though, that this wasn't the freaking issue.

So, I took my laptop to someone to have a look but he couldn’t figure it out. Prior to all this, I had turned off automatic updates, metered connection and done something else I can’t remember to fix it - oh I remember now - I uninstalled and disabled apps with the help of @stickupboys. But still, that didn’t seem to cut it. I went from 25 GB a month in data usage to 250 GB!!! Even if I am Roddy Rich, would I really consume that much data?

So, raving mad and totally consumed by my loss, I asked for my laptop to be formatted. Most of my files were backed up on G-Drive anyway so I had no qualms. Told Winston, as @tengolotodo referred to him, to wipe it all out. He did and went ahead to reinstall softwares. I told him to leave out the MS stuff and I’ll stick to Google Workspace on Chrome.

Before he gave my laptop back to me, I was already having a mental breakdown and it affected my presence heavily on Hive and whatever work I had lined up. I don’t have money to throw away, and losing $13 (following other subscriptions) in less than a week was very painful. Tengo was willing to help me get a different laptop to work with, which I am super grateful for, but I was already traumatised by laptops and the one I did a test run on did not even come close to my Baby - my laptop. I’m a one Laptop Woman. Sue me!!

Anyhoo, A guy I have known for about seven years who is also a computer whiz asked me to bring the laptop over (P.S he was also the one who gave me the other laptop to test run). The next day, he returned it to me and told me it was a deep rooted virus, trojan. The only time I had heard that name was in Junior Secondary School, in Computer Science class. I have forgotten about it since then.

He told me he had it quarantined and installed a new anti-virus. He asked me to try it and get back to him. I tried it for a week. I had subbed 7 GB Weekly data to my mi-fi to try this and had to quickly transfer the 5 GB worth of data left back to my mobile because in a week, I used less than 2 GB! That was how my data consumption went from 250 GB a month to less than 10.

Also, the anti virus does this thing where it alerts me of suspicious activities and has me take action immediately. It has been a lifesaver and I make sure to update it once I get the notification. Now, I am more aware that my Baby can get sick. So, no downloading of apps or whatnot if not from Pexels or Canva.

If you have been in this situation before, you must understand how painful it is. So, there is, in fact, a kind of pain worse than a heartbreak or a splinter, and it is losing money with T-Pain on the throne.