Re: Computer hacked, Please Help
SW, it sounds like it was your Nephew to me. He is not the best hack out there since he logged into Ebay from your machine and did not clear the cookie which would have taken an experienced (or even inexperienced) person 10 seconds.<br /><br />I would do a couple things.<br />Don't make it too complicated, but protect yourself. There is a lot of good information here. My advice, (although since I have been in management I have lost a lot of tech knowledge.)<br /><br />1. If your do not run Windows, then make sure it is Win2K or XP. If not, dump your old operating system and upgrade.<br />2. Patch system with operating system patches and virus scan/Firewall patches<br />3. Look at all your user accounts. Delete the ones that are not used and change any open account password<br />4. Make sure your main account is an adminstrator account so you can access and change the admin password. <br />5. Change the Admin password, reboot and login under the true administrator account to make sure you can.<br />6. Change your main account password<br /><br />This does not eliminate any backdoors he may have put on the machine, but if he just guessed a password, this should take care of it.<br /><br />7. Clear all cache and cookies on internet Explorer <br /><br />8. Create a "Guest" account (can be named anything) with no rights to install software, etc. That should be the only account he can use. <br />9. After he is done or has been near the computer go in as the main account and look at recent docs folder, check IE history for all accounts and cookies. If you have succesfully removed his access, then only the guest account will have new information.<br /><br />10. Secure externally. Linksys router with Firewall is a must (other kinds are good too, make sure it is quality). It is very secure out of the box, but make sure firewall is turned on. This will eliminate most Zombies hitting your machine as a matter of course. Will not eliminate someone trying your IP directly, but they will not get through unless they already have software installed on your machine or you click on something to install their software on your machine.<br /><br />I run Dual Firewalls, but it is not necessary to be redundant, but it also prtects me if my son's computer on my home network gets a virus etc.<br /><br />11. Set your Virus scan to auto update unless you are on dialup. Mine updates every 12 hours<br />12. Set your virus scan to scan your machine periodically. Mine does a full scan weekly. It is also set up to scan all incoming and outgoing emails and attachments even if they are many many layers deep.<br />13. Download a couple Spyware scanners. Spybot: Search and Destroy and Adaware are free for home use and work fairly well and scan yur machine with them ona schedule, Mae sur eyou click the update before the scan.<br />14. Have Windows Auto-update your machine or set a schedule to do this yourself, but don't be lax.<br />15. If you have to surf sites, that you are not sure of their safety, Use Firefox browser. At least for the time being it is a little safer than IE, but this will not continue in the future as the install base gets bigger so it is more worthwhile for hackers to hack it.<br /><br />I run Windows XP Professional SP2, IE 6.0, Firefox, Trend Micro internet suite with firewall enabled and have a Linksys firewall with wireless which has WEP 128bit enabled.<br /><br />I have used Zonealarm to check for programs that may try to access the net, but do not regularly run it.<br /><br />When I went to the Linksys router, from the one that came with my broadband, that eliminated the Zombie hits that were coming at 2 an hour.
