Regarding the virus, how would one double check that I was not victim to this attack. **nervous**
Generate the new addresses on your cold system first, and then verify that the addresses you generate on the hot watch-only system match the addresses in the cold system.
If a computer is infected, it is completely hopeless
Let say you generated an address with the cold system, which is "1User". You send a withdrawal request to the exchange, asking them to send bitcoin to 1User. A sophisticated malware could secretly replace the address with "1Hacker" before sending the request the exchange.
Extremely valid point.
Some users on Reddit have actually been having this problem caused by extensions on google chrome. Though it could be any sort of malware, google chrome extensions just seem to be the thing lately.
Always a good idea to send a small test transaction out of an exchange before sending the whole amount.