How to get rid of hackers?

[Sista]

Asalamualaikum,

I think someone may have hacked into my computer and I need to know how to get rid of them. I googled how to do it and didnt understand half of what was being said...is anyone able to help me? Do I need to reformat my computer? and will this get rid of them for good? I feel very paranoid about it...can the person see me if im using webcam through skype?

jazakumullahu Khairan

[abu rashid]

Why do you think someone hacked into your computer?

Given how broad a topic hacking is, simply googling "how to get rid of hackers" could surely never give you a solution, even if you were hacked.

If someone has installed some kind of trojan on your machine that allows them to re-direct your webcam, then of course they could see you.

Formatting will indeed rectify the situation, but first you should state why you think you've been hacked. Maybe you're just being a little paranoid?

[Sista]

Thanks for your help.

After scanning my computer i found two trojan Horse?? viruses on it...i have no idea what that is but that was only after i'd suspected that my computer had been hacked into...i get weird sounds coming out of my speakers and when using skype the person i'm speaking to sees my desktop and files etc instead of my video. Whenever I use skype it freezes up at some point and i have to restart...this never used to happen before. My computer has slowed down and takes ages to shut down. I also used the netstat -ano command and found established ports when nothing was running.

I delted the trojan's but not sure if that has solved anything.

[JalaleddinRumi]

Thanks for your help.

After scanning my computer i found two trojan Horse?? viruses on it...i have no idea what that is but that was only after i'd suspected that my computer had been hacked into...i get weird sounds coming out of my speakers and when using skype the person i'm speaking to sees my desktop and files etc instead of my video
...cut..

Perhaps you have turned on screen sharing in skype?

[Sista]

Thanks for that...i didnt know you could do that on skype...thats what probably happened then. What about the trojan virus, is it used only for spying on a computer or can it also act like a normal computer virus?

[JalaleddinRumi]

Thanks for that...i didnt know you could do that on skype...thats what probably happened then. What about the trojan virus, is it used only for spying on a computer or can it also act like a normal computer virus?

As the name implies, it is a trojan. Here is a link on differences between trojan and a virus.

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/...2004/virus.asp

Search for the trojan on the net and see what comes up. In any case just delete it (and associated software)

[tatar]

The first step to protecting yourself is to understand what it is you are protecting yourself against.

Have a simple read of this wikipedia page Wiki Page for some basic understanding. Also, most windows anti virus software's work on the principle of knowing which virus/malware is about to attack or attacking your machine. For example, think of viruses as people trying to con their way into your home, but you have a person (anti virus) guarding your door. The guard has a list of names of people who are not to be allowed and most viruses do not change that thing, but some do and since most of times, you have said to the guard, allow unless explicitly told otherwise, they will let the new person (virus) in.

In short, anti-viruses will only defend your system against viruses they already know about, not the new ones or the ones that get updated or changed. This is the main reason why the anti-virus, especially on windows, keeps updating itself.

Depending upon how much you want to learn, there are many levels on which you can protect yourself. Install something like Ghostery on Chrome and that more often that protects you from harmful pop ups and malware installation. There are plugins for both firefox and chrome, which do not download images when you visit a webpage. That also helps in stopping malware installation. (Sometimes bad scripts pretend to be images).

If you have ADSL at home, find out how to not broadcast the fact that you have a wireless network. Basically this involves changing your router/modem settings to not broadcast something called the SSID(which is nothing more than the wireless network name). If you want to be even more secure, look up something called MAC address filtering.

Note that all these things simply make it harder, but not impossible to hack.

Other simple things you can do

1. Do not click on an email making an offer you do not know about.
2. Do not click facebook invites in email.
3. Do not click any pop up, ever.
4. Set your browser to delete cookies and cache before you access your bank or anything you consider private.
5. Always, always make your passwords really really hard.

[Sista]

Thank you for the info/links..info was a great help
May Allah reward you

[NRaf]

A tip when choosing passwords - try and choose a long phrase that's easy for you to remember. For example, AntsEatTheHoneyISellForMoney.

[tatar]

You should read Schneier's blog. Basically, you want a password that you cannot remember. Since you only remember things that are close to you or are patterns; both of which are easily deducable. Look up something like 1Password or something similar.

[NRaf]

Nope, I disagree. You want a password that's easy for your to remember (so you don't have to write it down, reducing security), but is hard for someone else to guess. Also, you want to ideally have different passwords for all of the different services you use. Using complicated passwords that are difficult to remember (i.e. random series of letters, numbers and punctuation symbols) encourages people to reuse passwords. Choosing a long, random phrase that's easy to remember is better than a short password that's hard to remember. It's a lot to remember series of random words than it is to remember random passwords.

[Najah]

doesnt having a password u cant remember defeat the purpose of setting the password?

[tatar]

Nope, I disagree. You want a password that's easy for your to remember (so you don't have to write it down, reducing security), but is hard for someone else to guess

The human brain is wired to remember, decipher and recognise patterns when you think of anything that you want to keep secret but not write down or lock away, you conjure up a pattern. Sure, it would be hard to decipher out someone's remembered pattern at random, but thats were social engineering comes handy.

Choosing a long, random phrase that's easy to remember is better than a short password that's hard to remember. It's a lot to remember series of random words than it is to remember random passwords.

No. Choosing a long series of random letters (both upper and lower case) and numbers which are hard to remember is better than both.

Doesn't having a password u cant remember defeat the purpose of setting the password?

The idea we have been sold is that you need to have easy and small passwords because there are so many to remember, but that is not true, at least not anymore. You have tools like GPG and 1Password, and SSH keys which help you in that. OpenID does that for web based stuff. Sure you can keep a simple password, but it will be crackable. Actually all passwords are as secure as the network they are sent over.