A stealth virus is a type of virus malware that contains sophisticated means of avoiding detection by antivirus software. After it manages to get into the now-infected machine a stealth virus hides itself by continually renaming and moving itself around the disc.

Like other viruses, a stealth virus can take control of many parts of one’s PC. When taking control of the PC and performing tasks, antivirus programs can detect it, but a stealth virus sees that coming and will rename and then copy itself to a different drive or area on the disc, ahead of the antivirus software. Once moved and renamed a stealth virus will usually replace the detected ‘infected’ file with a clean file that does not trigger anti-virus detection. It’s a never-ending game of cat and mouse.

The intelligent architecture of this type of virus all but guarantees it is impossible to fully rid oneself of it once infected. One would have to completely wipe the computer and rebuild it from scratch to fully eradicate the presence of a stealth virus. Using regularly-updated antivirus software can reduce risk, but, as we all know, antivirus software is also caught in an endless cycle of finding new threats and protecting against them.