Even if malicious application didn’t take over control of your laptop/compute, asks for money while holding your personal document, passwords and photos as hostage or use your computer as a weapon to infect other computers through security holes or infection removable flash/hard-drives your are still at risk! They often use your internet connection to upgrade itself and even to download additional to get more functionality like the ones mentioned above, so THE LONGER YOU WAIT, THE WORSE IT WILL GET even without your interaction. But be aware of fake anti-virus software that report 5 and more infections at a time, they most likely just scamming you and even if they are not, they will not be able to defeat it. Please seek professional help.