I have a neighbor who used to be legally involved in hacking as a part of his job … (enough said)
One day he brought his laptop to my house … and without hacking ..
He investigated all the wireless networks in the neighborhood .. Including many I can’t see.
He could tell what forms of encryption they were using and what equipment they had on their network.
For a test, He set up a normally encrypted wireless network at his house …
And cracked it within 3 minutes with his laptop doing all the work.
He was also showing me the hacker tools (that are available for free) ..
Where he can monitor internet traffic or even insert his computer as a middle man in the internet cafes.
I can only understand about 1% of what he is telling me … But the bottom line is:
Always wipe the HD and perform a full clean recovery.
Disconnect from the internet until you have your critical updates installed and security set up.
Don’t use wireless unless you have to .. and use the tightest encryption.
Don’t do anything on the internet that can hurt you.
Right now ..
He’s watching for malware that can even survive installing a new Hard Drive ...
and will be in your computer before you reinstall windows … (in the Bios)
I thought I’d pass this on .. so Ya’ll can be as Paranoid as I am