[penagwin]

Yes? But most viruses don't lay dormant waiting for you to type in a bank account password and quietly send it off (some do for sure).

A lot of viruses sell "installs" - where other less moral software devs will pay per installation of their software. Or they spam ads across your entire computer etc. Or they encrypt your files and demand a ransom. None of these things are quiet or stealthy - anybody with decent IT experience will notice them pretty fast.

It's kinda like regular crime. Sure every once in a while there's a thief that quietly lockpicks his way into somebodies home after spying on them and knowing they've left on vacation, leaving little evidence they took anything at all. Most of the time somebody just does a smash-and-grab, quick and dirty.

[clarry]

You don't want to share that data?

I keep running into the same phenomenon everywhere; everyone thinks they know whether they've been infected or not. I suppose everyone is a malware expert, so there's no need to share the data with anyone. I'm quite out of the loop here.

[penagwin]

> I keep running into the same phenomenon everywhere; everyone thinks they know whether they've been infected or not.

I mean I get what you're saying. My point is that most viruses aren't trying to be hidden, so they're rather obvious. Of course there's a chance they try to be sneaky, and you're right you have no way of knowing if those are present and well hidden.

But anti-virus only does so much, if you're past Windows Defender you're past a bunch of other tools too. A lot of anti-malware software is very generic, and relies on some rather dumb techniques.