Have you ever been hacked?

With all that security, I'ts hard to imagine a hacker going thru your system. I lean toward a worm/virus in your system. Usually when files disappear or get moved around your system , its a sign of a worm. Viruses usually destroy main files with in result will cause your system to crash.
Run a compleate virus scan on your entire system, maybe you are over looking something.

Thanks Apocalypse_67, will do that again and maybe go online to another software maker and do an online one. It's just annoying, as I hope it doesn't mean another clean installation - will be the third for the year if so! >

Um.... these days some worms and viri can disable your own virus protection. To be really sure, go to a good on-line virus scan and run that. Norton has one, McAfee does too. They are free.

Dude formatting is the best solution u should do it about every 3 months if needed it helps trust me

Hmmm...losing icons and files....are you sure you're not just clumsy and forget where you put things?....

 

#3 by goodmorphing - 5/19/2003 1:02:05 AM Um.... these days some worms and viri can disable your own virus protection. To be really sure, go to a good on-line virus scan and run that. Norton has one, McAfee does too. They are free.

Listen to GM.  I had a worm on my home machine that disabled Norton, put exclusions in it for all the places it spread itself to, and then took over the auto-update files so that Norton couldn't pull updates to get rid of it.

I would suggest running Mcafee's online virus scan.  It's free to scan with, but you have to pay for it to get rid of the infected files.

#4 by Citizen ponz14 - 5/19/2003 4:56:26 AM Dude formatting is the best solution u should do it about every 3 months if needed it helps trust me

What?!  I wouldn't follow that advise.  There are *very* few times that you should ever have to reformat.  It's just a waste of time and energy. 

The worm that I got on my machine was the first one that I ever got at home, and I've never been hacked.  It also took no time at all to recover from it.  Reformatting and restoring would have taken days with no better results than just cleaning the worm.

robsvoyage hacking isn't a simple thing, the most hackers around these they are 13 yo children who has seen the movie 'hackers' to much. A hacker woulnd't be intrested in hacking your system, a true hacker wants a challange, something like the wincustomize server

if you don't download illegal software its hard to imagine you have a 'worm' or virus, it also can come trough mail, but if yo scan your system, your virus scanner should come up with something, if it dasn't, just read post #5

I run Norton Systemworks 2003 and Norton Personal Firewall 2003 and keep them updated at all times. Several times people have tried to send me a virus or worm in an email and it has been destroyed by Norton Antivirus before it could be downloaded to my computer. Also, most hackers use some type of scanner to just go through a whole range of IP addresses looking for an opening. They don't specifically target YOUR computer but if their scanner detects a way in they will take it. My NPF detects numerous attempts every single day of people trying to hack into my computer using Trojan horses usually and gives me detailed reports of each attempt including the IP address of the person making the attempt. They come from all over the world and many of them are right here in my local area on the same ISP as myself. I complained to my ISP about this but they couldn't care less about it and did absolutely nothing. If you have a broadband connection and don't take adequate measures to protect yourself you are leaving yourself open to all sorts of malicious attacks.

are you running adaware and spybot? your machine could be clogged with all that spy garbage that attaches to your system and can do some really goofy stuff to your puter.

It's quite common to get hacked, but most of the time, people who hack into your system mainlynwant to set up a FTP site to use your computer as a warez server. It's happened to me twice before, and I ended up with a few gigabytes of MP3's and pirated applications.  I have since then installed Zone Alarm and that took care of that.  Using just XP's built-in firewall doesn't cut it, that's what I had before.

So, in short, hackers aren't interested into deleting files and shortcuts on your system, they want to use your system for warez. So I doubt that's what your problem is.

They should make a virus scanner, that when you are being hacked, you get the popup with the ip, and press a buton named 'counter atack'

Ive used McAfee Personal Firewall Plus which has a cool little tracking function built in so you can see where the presumed hack attempt originated from. I quit using when we got DSL cause it wasnt compatible. But when I had it, It worked quite well and stopped all sorts of unwanted communications. I use McAfee VirusScan Online on the desktops and Norton Anti-Virus 2003 on my laptop. Id rather have McAfee Virus Scan 7 Pro, but then again, Its not really worth it cause Norton works just fine.

A good little program to have is The Cleaner, will do a scan for Trojans only which most Anti-Virus software won't detect

Styl Skinner: if you don't download illegal software its hard to imagine you have a 'worm' or virus, it also can come trough mail, but if yo scan your system, your virus scanner should come up with something, if it dasn't, just read post #5

See my post above about the worm that I had that took out Norton.  Worms are a lot trickier than they used to be.  They typically install backdoors.

You can get viruses (especially worms) from more sources than email and files.  They propagate through shared drives, some through remote desktop when you connect local drives, and some can even get to you from infected websites if you don't have proper security.  Read up on that type of information on the support pages of virus protection software.

If you are curious about where pings and port probes come from, check out BlackIce.  It will also allow you to ban IP addresses when they become bothersome.  It also tells you the severity of that action that is happening.  Some behavior that looks like a hack is actually normal behavior.

Paxx is correct, however.  Hackers want to place warez on your machine and use you as a file server.  They typically go after anonymous FTPs on company servers, however (more space and bandwidth).

Thanks for all the info guys! Wiped both of my drives using Iolo drivescrubber (took 4 hours combined!) and then performed a fresh install. Being a touch paranoid now, all security has been boosted, as I am on cable. I think I was infected by a suss email. lol Jafo!

It is very naive of anyone to think that they will be free of viri so long as they do not frequent sleazy warez site. We have a machine that is used to run an outdoor sign... scrolls news headlines. It became infected with sircam not once but 3 times. considering this machine does not actually surf the net or even partake in email, it shows you that worms are smart (or worm writers). It even infects norton on the machine. the only way we could stop it is to upgrade away from win9x but the sign client will not run on NT, 2k or XP. Sircam isn't even a new breed of worm.

But usually, if you keep your anti-virus software up-to-date all the time, chances are pretty slim to catch a virus.

I just did a lot to my system and found out a few wierd things.

I used norton Anti virus...All clean
I used ad aware and it came back with 57 programs so I got rid of all them
Then I installed Sygate Personal firewall so I hope that helps to.

I read a lot of PC Magazines. In their tests, they say that there are viruses that even Norton, which was second best, missed.

Mcafee missed many viruses in their test. I tried getting the top rated program but, it isn't a commerical product. This program missed none of the viruses. And, the company didn't answer the telephone. Strange. So, I guess I'm stuck with second best.

I run Norton Internet Security Professional, Norton AV, Spybot search & destroy(a free program which is great for catching trojans and spyware). I've read many threads at Win Annoyances where people have been infected with worms, trojans and spyware that do most of what you are describing. There was a new one recently that was infecting a lot of people online. And, the new Spybot build came out two weeks later. Be careful because, nothing is free online. Especially those screensavers, they will infect you. Spybot search & destroy seems to be the best program for trojans, worms and spyware. And, its free.

Kona, a all clean doesn't mean much if your virus signatures aren't up to date. Once, I had a virus on my system and the virus scanner didn't detect it until I updated the signatures.

Also try, SpyBot Search & Destroy, it will get many things that Ad-aware missed, as well as registry orphans that Norton Utilities missed, I guarantee you, and it is free too.

I know my virus signatures are up to date... I just dl the new ones with the date 5/20/03 today.

20 by Mr ChasUGC - 5/20/2003 8:32:52 PM Kona, a all clean doesn't mean much if your virus signatures aren't up to date. Once, I had a virus on my system and the virus scanner didn't detect it until I updated the signatures

There are worms out there (like one that I had) that are not detected by Norton and will actually infect Norton (they take over the auto-update function.)  Here is an example of the type of worm I am referring to:  http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=100143

No email or warez sites needed to get infected with that puppy.

Hum. I have never been infected by any virus nor worm. I've always caught them.
On the other hand, I'm constantly fixing other people's computer frpom virii at work because they don't update their virus signatures.

I'm not saying it can't happen, obviously it did to you, Angie. But generally speaking, if you keep your antivirus up to date at all times, you should be safe. While if you don't, you have almost 100% chances of getting infected.

I had Norton up to date and still got it.  Mcafee picked it up right away and got rid of it.  No virus protection is 100% reliable.

However, worms are not that destructive, typically.  They just spread like crazy and will bring your system to a crawl.  A lot will install a backdoor, however, which will create a security breach.  They also spread through shared drives, so they are a bit trickier to detect.  Once the worm was found and extracted, everything was fine and dandy on my machine.  Just took a couple hours of cursing before it was all happy again.

It never hurts to scan with a different virus scanner if there is a question of infection.

i can't believe eeryone is using Norton, tis too much bloat. for a good anti-virus go with Grisoft AVG, free and unobtrusive.

also free is Kerio Personal Firewall, written by a group of guys who used to work on Zone Alarm. Kerio is smaller and more secure than ZA.

wickid cool.