A few years ago my wife would frequent asian streaming sites to get the latest episodes of some of her shows. Despite having a mostly-patched system and AVG, she got infected with a few viruses/worms.
Generally I'd say that you'll know you're infected rather quick. Some evidence:
- advertising disconnected from the websites you're visiting. Random pop-up ads for example.
- most malware have ability to download and install MORE malware, which AVG will catch some of. So you'll start to randomly get AVG hits for files you did not download because the malware downloaded and attempted to install them.
- some malware will succeed in installing and end up trying to scam you out of $40.
In her case she was infected with an extremely lethal (and interesting) piece of malware called TDL3:
It hides really well by creating an encrypted partition at the end of the disk, and its primary goal is to just download and execute other malware which the authors charge a per-install fee to the other authors. It is nearly impossible to get rid of. She would randomly get infected with other more obvious viruses all the time due to this infection vector.
Generally I'd say that you'll know you're infected rather quick. Some evidence:
- advertising disconnected from the websites you're visiting. Random pop-up ads for example.
- most malware have ability to download and install MORE malware, which AVG will catch some of. So you'll start to randomly get AVG hits for files you did not download because the malware downloaded and attempted to install them.
- some malware will succeed in installing and end up trying to scam you out of $40.
In her case she was infected with an extremely lethal (and interesting) piece of malware called TDL3:
http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792180/TDL4_Top_Bot
It hides really well by creating an encrypted partition at the end of the disk, and its primary goal is to just download and execute other malware which the authors charge a per-install fee to the other authors. It is nearly impossible to get rid of. She would randomly get infected with other more obvious viruses all the time due to this infection vector.