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I accidentally visited a sketchy website and clicked on a link which I think was a malicious advert. After that I think the site tried to download something on my computer but my antivirus blocked two download attempts and after that nothing happened.

Then I did a full scan with my anti virus (paid, Kaspersky), Malwarebytes, and Hitman Pro. They all found nothing. I have removed the browser (MS Edge) on which it happened.

Am I good to go here or should I format my computer? I never clicked on any .exe file and the downloads were blocked, but could something have been missed? I'm mainly thinking of a keylogger. I use my computer for internet banking and that's why I'm paranoid.

Can simply clicking on a link without activating an .exe file install a keylogger on my computer? Should I format it? It would be extremely tedious to format it and I have no way of taking backup currently so I'll lose a lot of important video files.

I'm on Windows 10 and recently updated it to the new feature pack.

Please help me out.

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    I'd be 95% sure you're probably fine. It's almost certainly okay, but there's a slim chance that something got through depending on how sophisticated the attack is. It's not at the point of "NUKE THIS TO THE BEDROCK NOW!" but it's something to be aware of if things start getting more screwy. Anything you care about should be backed up one way or another. Anything not backed up should be considered expendable or at risk.
    – Mokubai
    Apr 19, 2021 at 9:02
  • It was a video streaming site for middle eastern TV shows (I guess porn would've been easier to explain) which I visited out of curiosity. I doubt it would have anything extremely sophisticated. Apr 19, 2021 at 9:56

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Am I good to go here or should I format my computer?

Sounds like the antivirus has prevented the malicious software from running. You're good.

I have removed the browser (MS Edge) on which it happened.

That's like scrapping your car because someone tried to scam you in a drive through.

It would be extremely tedious to format it and I have no way of taking backup currently so I'll lose a lot of important video files.

That's a problem. You don't make backups after a disaster - there may be nothing to back up. Backups should be fully automated, unattended and kept always up to date (ie. never outdated more than acceptable for your case).

What if your drive would fail now? Or a power spike would kill it? What if your computer would get stolen?

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  • Haha. Edge was my side browser anyway. I know I should've backed up but I was working on these files and I have limited storage space on my Gdrive so...yeah. Lesson learnt. Apr 19, 2021 at 9:53
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If you actually didn't download and execute anything, I see no issue. Except off-course that this site knows that your PC exists.

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  • That's what I was thinking. Apr 19, 2021 at 9:55

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