Computer Crashed. Hackers

[John McDonough]

On Wednesday evening I turned on the internet. Clicked on this favorite, which put me in this section. I read the headline posts, checked the backroom. Maybe 20 minutes

I then clicked on a Guitar Website. Maybe 20 minutes

I shut off the computer and went to bed.

The next day my wife cant get on the computer. She has to get on the phone with a Computer tech who spent 8 hours fixing this computer. He claims that a hacker got into our computer while I was using it. ($140.00 fee to clear the problem)

I faintly remember that one of those advertizement blocks did show up and I hit X. it didnt go away so I hit cancell. We were told that Hackers use this to access the computer. Clicking on the X or cancel is a trick to open up.

If you get any of these boxes. dont hit X or cancell. You have to press Alt and F4 to erase it.
Dont open anything unless you are positive you know what it is.

[dennisneal]

John,

Do you have antivirus and firewall software installed on your computer?

[BK]

I lost 2 computors to hackers. I now only use public library computors that reboot with no storage after each user. Also its free.

[John McDonough]

John,

Do you have antivirus and firewall software installed on your computer?

Yes. We have the Norton anti virus. It was the Norton tech who cleaned us up. He told my wife I was hacked into the hour while I was on line. He says the hackers are getting more sophisticated and I allowed them in thinking I was cancelling or Xing them out.

I was just warning everyone here that it is possible I was intercetpted while on this site or the Guitar site.

Remember. To get rid of any box that shows up press Alt and f4.

[rwmiller56]

Run anti-virus software, plus firewall software (Windows firewall is built-in to all Windows versions XP and later, and is OK). Security Suites like Norton, McAfee, and AVG will have all of these bundled.

It also helps to have a router that serves private IP addresses to all PCs in the house. That puts your PCs behind a hardware firewall, so the actual IP address of any PC is not visible, except within your own home network. The router will deflect any "port scan" attempts. Open ports is the most common means of entry by an attacker.

I do all this and haven't had any problems.

However, if you click on a malicious link, you might be inviting trouble by unintentionally giving the attacker a "back door" into your system.

Roger

[rwmiller56]

John,

Do you have antivirus and firewall software installed on your computer?

Yes. We have the Norton anti virus. It was the Norton tech who cleaned us up. He told my wife I was hacked into the hour while I was on line. He says the hackers are getting more sophisticated and I allowed them in thinking I was cancelling or Xing them out.

I was just warning everyone here that it is possible I was intercetpted while on this site or the Guitar site.

Remember. To get rid of any box that shows up press Alt and f4.

Yep, it sounds like you clicked on a malicious link. If you run Firefox web browser, you can install a pop-up blocker that will suppress any pop-up ads like that. I think IE might also have that capability.

[pokerrick1]

Remember. To get rid of any box that shows up press Alt and f4.

Thanks for this tip - - - I learned something today (what I learned was - - - if you play poker with nine drunks; one of them will get you every time) Didn't cost me much - - - $2,600 Oh well

Rick Less

[John McDonough]

- - if you play poker with nine drunks; one of them will get you every time) :

Rick Less

I was drunk once. This Lady Insults me. ""You sir are a disqusting drunk""

I replied..
""Yes I am drunk, but when I wake up I will be sober, when you wake up you will still be ugly""

(Couldnt resist a Churchill quote)

[c130king]

- - if you play poker with nine drunks; one of them will get you every time) :

Rick Less

I was drunk once. This Lady Insults me. ""You sir are a disqusting drunk""

I replied..
""Yes I am drunk, but when I wake up I will be sober, when you wake up you will still be ugly""

(Couldnt resist a Churchill quote)

Took the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus tour of London today with 8 of my wife's family that came into town for a few days before their Baltic Cruise that starts tomorrow. Our tour guide showed us the house that Lady Astor lived in. She was an American born Brit that became a Member of Parliament (MP) back during Churchill's time when he was Prime Minister (PM). Apparently Lady Astor and Sir Winston did not exactly see eye to eye on policy and they did not really like each other. We were told about that quote plus this one:

Lady Astor: Sir, if I was your wife I would put poison in your coffee.

Sir Winston: Ma'am, if I was your husband I would drink it.

What a guy...

As a sidelight...Sir Winston was recently voted the most important Brit of all time. And he has a nice statue near Parliament and it is the only "electrified" statue in all of London...there is an electric current that enters at his base and keeps the statue electrified to keep the pigeons off...can't have your most VIP'est of VIP's covered in pigeon poop!

Ahh, the interesting things you learn on city tours...and it was a HOT day in London today. Mid 80's and very sunny. I am a little bit lobsterized.

Cheers,
Jim
Sailing on König

[The Mutt]

Seriously, I use AVG free for virus protection and Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/ to find all the nasties that get past.

At least a couple of times a week I manually start both making sure thay are still intact with nothing switched off, I manually update definitions then start a scan to check things out, it's much easier doing these checks in the time I choose than to have a problem when I'm busy.

One thing, no matter what virus software you are using check to see if a nasty has switch off your virus software from checking, updating, etc.

Glenn

[Russ]

a Computer tech who spent 8 hours fixing this computer. He claims that a hacker got into our computer while I was using it. ($140.00 fee to clear the problem)

$17.50/hr for a computer tech is pretty good rate. Hopefully he wasn't spinning his wheels to rack up the total.

My Mother-In-Law called me yesterday. She got a nasty virus that claimed if you click on this window it would remove it. She was smart enough not to do that but it still managed to put a half dozen porn shortcuts on her desktop and cause a lot of problems.

FYI, Windows System Restore is your friend.
1) Boot your computer in safe mode. Press F8 repeatedly as your computer is starting up and select "Safe Mode"
2) In Safe mode click Start-Accessories-System Tools-System Restore.
3) Select a date before it was infected and follow the prompts.

If it's not too nasty a virus, this will put your system back.


--Russ

[pokerrick1]

What RussMT said - - - that's what I do when my laptop gets hopeless.

Rick Less

[The Mutt]

I've had malware remove all system restore points.

Glenn

[SkiDeep2001]

It's a good idea to set up a restore point date before you get the viruses. Some of the malware won't let you go in and set a restore point. Then you are going to have a problem. A good thing to keep in mind is, don't click on anything you didn't initiate. Rob

[NiceAft]

I don't mean to be "a stick in the mud", but why is this in the MacGregor Powersailor Discussion section. This really belongs in the Pub's front room.

Ray