Have your computer or laptop been hacked?

[alp]

An hour ago, I was typing this on my laptop.

I am not going to get any cat or dog. I saw a docu-crime episode yesterday in which two lecturers (one army one) had loads of cats and dogs and their foods and vet bilsl push them into debts. The woman is addicted to painkillers whilst the man collects child p orn on computer. One night, an argument flared up and the the woman says the man kills himself as she called the 911 wanting to expose him and he tells 911 operator the he's trying to remove all the guns. In the end, man discovered dead with the gun 5 feet away. The woman served 10 months and gets sent back to Scotland.

Whilst I was typing this on Chrome browser, I noticed random words got highlighted without my moving the mouse at all and sometimes the whole message was selected (twice) and the post was actually POSTED!!

This was after I tried to watch The Papers on a new software. When I click on FULL screen, the webcam light suddenly got turned on (I then remember some 13 year old used a tape to seal the webcam light to avoid her laptop being hacked!) This webcam light came every time I tried to watch the episode on full screen. As soon as I did that, I had a message warning that this app was not compatible with my Nvidia intalled.

Son said that he would remove Chrome altogether and that was not my first experience of being hacked on Chrome. He switched off the laptop and upon restart, he removed chrome. When I went back, I couldn't see the post. But it could be the wrong thread.

Another time was in September when I won £2.90 on National Lottery. Could never get the money out. Click the payment, it was greyed out.

Another time, a strange insertion in my email said, "The man is wrong."

Have you had similar experience(s) or any hacks?

 

[Owdboggy]

May I ask if you have any anti-virus programs on your machine?
I would download and run Malwarebytes. That will check your machine for viruses.
I would also download and install Spybot. This is a background program which prevents any alteration to your machine without your permission.
Both these programs are free for the basic version.

 

[alp]

I have used Malwarebytes a few times. I will ask my son about the other one.

Thank you for the heads up.. My son said he knew someone was squatting somewhere and that he tried various means and to tell the truth, he is not an IT expert, but he's quite good at this. Will sort it out when we come back from shopping. Thank you, @Owdboggy !

 

[Owdboggy]

https://www.spybot-free-download.com/
Which Windows are you on, is it Windows 10?

 

[Tjohn]

Avast Antivirus is good and free, too.

 

[splinx]

Have your computer or laptop been hacked?

I would not say it was hacked, but some years ago I remember my computer getting accessed by someone through desktop sharing. And I only noticed it because my mouse started moving on the screen without my consent... Then I do not really know what they did with my data, or if any was collected or altered in any way.

I was using a Windows operating system back then, and I was just a teenager with unimportant stuff on my computer.

As far as my experience goes, I would seriously doubt if there's any Windows machine that could considered secure, even if you're a zealous user or administrator who keeps it updated, with anti-virus and all sorts of defensive programs, free or paid.

And being more realistic, in the under developed countries only a few percent of the population have a licensed copy of Windows running with legitimate paid softwares running on it. And I do not condemn those people for running cracked, potentially insecure programs on their machine, and for a few reasons:

• Windows that come installed with their legitimately bought computers are often restrictive and force them to get a more complete version. And as they do not have money to buy a license they have little to no choice.
• Paid softwares usually require constant and expensive payments to keep it running, some every month. This may work in the developed world, but the reality is very different in the under developed world. Not only the price tag is inappropriate for most people, it requires constant payment.

I would be more cautious to say those people are being dishonest, but I'd look at it in a more merciful way and check the facts. I am talking about people who work everyday and get about $400-600 (US dollars) a month and have to keep their families with that; and that is in my country, in others people have to live with much less. There's no room to keep multiple licenses of different softwares each month, it impacts negatively their already restrictive income.

But what is clear to me is that many of those companies are being too greed and probably missing more potential, legalized users. It is like keeping 100 users at $200/month, and refusing 10000 for just $3/month. In my humble opinion, some companies need to review their pricing. And what is worse is that many of such expensive softwares have formats that are industry standards and it really becomes a big hurdle for the average citizen to get their work done in a format they have to pay high for.

Now, going back to operating systems I now use a Linux based system which costs me little to nothing. And they're far more secure than any Windows or MAC operating system I could ever build. I do not have anti-virus or any extra security software installed, I just use my router and I believe it is enough. At least, I did not experience any successful hacking attempt, by design it is much better on terms of security as it requires much more than a Windows or MAC.

It does not solve all my problems due to the difficulties imposed by the expensive software industry, but it is something which can be fixed most of the times with alternative software.

 

[alp]

@Owdboggy Sorry have been out and cooked a disastrous meal as Asda made me wait 12 days and then told me that I will have no rice cooker. Now they are charging £12 for the same thing I want.

Any way, Windows 10. Going to run the malawarebytes now and come back to this thread again.

 

[alp]

@splinx I quite agree with you. We used to have a licence for microsoft office, now son says we need to pay every month to be allowed to use the software. Keeping software up to date is an expensive business.

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

I like open source, but still one need licensed copy of paid version ones. I find open source are slow in developing due to lack of man power( not paid, but contribute generously ).

last time, I was hacked was when I was locked out of my old desk computer. It would not open. Ask some sort of password.

Thanks to the young lad, who helped me out, he took about 5 hours to restore my computer.

I lost few file from front picture screen.

After that incident I clean everything once in a month.

 

[Owdboggy]

Windows 10 should have Windows Defender bundled with it. Free updates for it and it is as good as any of the bought ones. Avoid Kapersky or Norton, both get bad reviews.
This is as good as Microsoft Office and it is free.
https://www.libreoffice.org/

 

[alp]

We are using Libreoffice, but don't like the format..

Run both software packages and as expected, found one or two naughties, but nasties.. Have totally removed chrome. Apparently, ebay won't sell your stuff if sellers use chrome which has now probably become a bot of a certain country or two..

 

[Owdboggy]

Good oh. Now run the anti-virus at least once a week.

 

[alp]

Will do! Thank you. Will try Avast as well. Thank you to all those who have replied.

 

[Rajesh Sethi]

Will do! Thank you. Will try Avast as well. Thank you to all those who have replied.

Anti virus are like medicines, you don't want it to be overdosed by two or more at a time.

 

[Owdboggy]

Agree. Too many will slow your machine down to a crawl. I have Windows Defender and Spybot and run Malwarebytes once a week, but it is not running in the background so it does not affect machine speed.