[dguy01]

ok since last year around october 2011, i have been paranoid that people are watching me whilst im on my computer.
I have been gettig indirects over facebook and twitter and on my phone saying that people can see what im doing whilst sat at home and what im looking at on my computer.
im not sure if its paranoia though because it seems very realistic.
nobody has come to me directly and asked me about what they have seen whilst i have been at home chilling.
and i also have worries that people can see what im doing on my blackberry phone.
Im not sure if i have been hacked or if its a virus but it seems too realistic not to be possible.
my question is if it is possible for this to happen in anyway?
and the people that can see me is a wide majority of people...

thanks

[dguy01]

i have rebooted my pc a few months ago though so im unsure if its still happening. it seems like its not though but i cant be sure.

any ideas please?

[dguy01]

any ideas please?

[dguy01]

anyone?

[dguy01]

???

[dguy01]

anyone?

[dguy01]

ok i made a post the other day asking if im being watched from my computer by others.
im now aksing if its possible to hack yourself?
i think people have hack my computer allowing everyone to see my files on my computer.
is this possible though?

thanks

[dvk01]

I have merged both your topics together as they are the same

you haven't asked for malware help, just asked a general query so I have moved this to gen security where anyone can reply to you

[dguy01]

ok thanks

[dguy01]

anyone got any advice or opinions?

[blues_harp28]

Hi, what happened 'around October 2011'?

You have yet to say what you use to protect your Pc - Anti-virus - Spyware programs etc
And do you update them and scan your system on a regular basis?

If you have an up to date Anti-virus program running - a password protected router and you run Spyware scans - you should be protected.
But staying safe while online is all about the user behind the keyboard.
Avoiding sites that may open us to Spyware - Malware etc, is our best protection.

[nickrory]

You could try analyzing your traffic and looking for any sign of spoofing maybe someone is performing a Man in the middle attack on you aka arp spoofing using something like cain and able. As far as i am aware there is no countermeasure against it.
You could try enabling port security to prevent automatic changes to the MAC address tables. Creating and maintaining static ARP entries for every host on your network is also a possible way to prevent this, you may need to make a batch script to do this automatically every time you start up your pc/s. My understanding of it is limited but maybe this is of some help.
Nick

[dguy01]

thanks for the advice.

how do i check my traffic?
im not very computer wise either.. but im on a pc running vista
and i have no anti virus programs :S because they cost too much.

[blues_harp28]

Without an Anti-Virus program installed you are open to all manner of infections.
Download Microsoft Security Essentials - Free.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...ity-essentials
Let it update and then scan your Pc.

Download.MalwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware
Download the Free versions of both programs.
MalwareBytes

SuperAntiSpyware

Let them update and then scan your Pc - remove all that they find.

[DoubleHelix]

Are you the only person who has physical access to the computer? No friends, no family members, absolutely no one else can or has ever touched your computer? If that's the case, what, specifically, are you seeing that makes you think you've been hacked? If you spend time on Facebook and Twitter posting personal information, of course people read that and can easily extrapolate generalities regarding your computer use. If you post a dozen links to CNN website stories, it makes sense someone would say, "I know you were browsing CNN yesterday." That's not hacking.

Rebooting is the process of restarting a computer by clicking Start -> Shutdown -> Restart. I'm sure you've rebooted several times since October 2011. If you mean you completely formatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows and all your applications from scratch in October 2011, then what happened since then? I go back to the question of who has physical access to your computer.

Security software only goes so far in protecting a computer. Your behavior has far more to do with it. If you click on every link a friend posts on Facebook or Twitter without analyzing the content to determine if it's legitimate or not, then I can pretty much guarantee you've visited a dangerous site.

With the proliferation of social media and plethora of sharing people do online, there can be a heightened sense of paranoia that people "know what you're doing". That doesn't mean someone has installed remote monitoring software on your computer and is watching your screen and logging your keystrokes as if they were sitting right next to you. Can it happen? Yes. But it's incredibly rare.