Help Needed From Any Computer Wizz's

florida sun

Mrs Christopher Eccleston wannabe!
Joined
May 2, 2004
Messages
17,635
Hi There
Hope you can help me with the following as I am a bit concerned.

When I logged onto my computer this evening (I am AOL by the way) it would not let me sign in until I had answered some security questions and changed my password, once I had done this I recieved an email from Aol to say that somebody had used one of my secondary screen names today at 12.49 pm to try and send unsolicited bulk email. Aol had stopped this happening and secured my account. When I telephoned them and told them nobody could possibly be using my computer at this time from home, they infromed me that it did not have to be from my computer, but that somebody had been able to get hold of my information and use my email address.

I have on their advice changed all my passwords and have deleted that particular screen name as I have not used it for a very long time.

They have assured me that they could not get any importent information such as credit card details, but I am very worried. Is there anything I can do to prevent this happening in the future.

Any help would be appricated.

Sue :wave:
 
Hi Sue,
I had a simular problem mine was they hacked into my pc,and got inside my online banking account,I only found out via my bank.
When I asked what I could do,they told my to install a firewall,which I have but had been switched off,and make sure all norton or etc anti viruses are up to date,do a virus scan and also on AOL you can do a spyware scan and see if there is any spyware,trojans on your computer,
Other than that make sure all passwords have been changed etc.

Sorry cant be of much help,I'm learning all this from my own experience.

Beth
 
Hi,

Im Michelles DH - Martyn.

Im a PC technician, so heres my advice.

As a long term measure, in my opinion, i would get rid of AOL.
AOL basically installs so much stuff, it practically takes over your pc - this is certainly not a good thing.

However short term...

Invest in a firewall package. Most people will try to sell you Norton Internet Security 2005.
Although Norton is very good, you need a good pc to "handle" it. For you see Norton is very power hungry, and if youve got a 3 year old pc or more, than it will take up most of your resources, and ultimately leave you with an incredibly slow pc.
I would recommend a firewall such as Sygate or Zonealarm. There is a version of zonealarm that you can get for free, but it does not have the fancy stuff attached.

Sygate
Zone Alarm

The thing with "software" firewalls is that although there good in most respects, there are certainly not the best.

Ultimately you should look for, whats called a "Router".

This is what a router is...
A device that determines the next network point to which a data packet should be forwarded enroute toward its destination. The router is connected to at least two networks and determines which way to send each data packet based on its current understanding of the state of the networks it is connected to. Routers create or maintain a table of the available routes and use this information to determine the best route for a given data packet.

In laymans terms, its a device that connects the pc and to the internet. Basically whatever your doing on the pc (internet wise) it goes through the router before entering the web.
A router not only connects many pcs in a house together, but is also a "hardware" firewall. Hardware firewalls are the best you can get.

Providing you use the internet carefully, no one will be able to access your pc.

In regards to costs....

Norton Internet Security 2005 is about £50
The router option however can cost various amounts. You see there are 2 ways of setting it up - Wired or Wireless.
Wired being that the pc is connected to the router by cables
Wireless being cable free. (It uses radio frequency instead)
To connect to the router from your pc, your pc must have a NIC installed (network card).

So for a wired setup, you can get a kit box (all the stuff you need) for about £80
However for the same money you can get all you need for a wireless setup! (Wireless is the future, so i recommend that)

If you dont want to spend money, then your best defense is "awareness"
Be careful on the internet, tell the kids not to sign up for stuff that is not needed. Try not to give your email address out....ever! I know that forums require email addresses, yet the forums usually have options to make your email address invisible.

Anyway i hope that helps a bit. If you need any assistance in anything, pm Shellbell.

Martyn
 
sorry about that he does go on :guilty:

Michelle
 

Beth,Martyn and Michelle,

Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou, all for the advice, I am now looking into purchasing a firewall this weekend, my only concern is that somebody told me that sometimes they stop you using boards like this and as I am hosting the March Quiz I really dont want that to happen(just a quick plug for the quiz, which I hope you'll all join in :rotfl: )

Thanks again for all the advice.


Sue :wave:
 
I use the free copy of ZoneAlarm on my home PC (via NTL Broadband).

It has never stopped me accessing websites. It does flag up if an application requests a connection to the internet and asks if you want to allow it. You cna specify to allow the connection once, or to remember that the application is 'trusted' to be able to connect whenever it needs it.

You can set the firewalll to flag up everytime there is a suspicious attempt to gain access to your PC - you will be amazed how many times this happens!
 
shellbell said:
As a long term measure, in my opinion, i would get rid of AOL.
AOL basically installs so much stuff, it practically takes over your pc - this is certainly not a good thing.
I have to disagree. AOL browser is far superior to IE or netscape in my opinion and comes with a whole host of extra features, including spyware protection. I have never had any problems with it "taking over the pc" and my AdAware programme never picks up anything suspicious from AOL either.
 
I use Firefox instead of IE and have no spyware problems etc. or site access/compatibility problems that you get with AOL :)
 
Hiya,

Martyn here...

Looks like ive missunderstood the question..

In terms of browsers. Then Firefox is the way forward.

IE's code is too simple and can easily be exploited by many malicious things.
 
Thanks Martyn, I found that really helpful (though I love my AOL :blush: )

Sue I agree you simply cannot be too careful. It's really easy to take PC security for granted!
 
The same thing happened to me two days ago, I couldn't log on and had to answer security questions and change my password. Besides an email from AOL telling me about the password change I don't think anythink else has happened, should I be worried about this?. I have ZoneAlarm and AOL spyware running.
 
Another thing I'm not sure anyone might want to know - is that hackers can spoof an email account from somebody elses email addresss book - and use that information to spam the world. Could be somebody else needs to protect their computer too.
 
~Piglet~ said:
The same thing happened to me two days ago, I couldn't log on and had to answer security questions and change my password. Besides an email from AOL telling me about the password change I don't think anythink else has happened, should I be worried about this?. I have ZoneAlarm and AOL spyware running.


Piglet whenever I've had troubles I go to AOL live chat and ask them for help. They are great (though are annoying as they persist in asking me to upgrade my Broadband, LOL)
 
Karen

I too went to the AOL live chat and they were very very helpful. They put my mind at rest.

Sue
 
Good advice from Martyn there :)

With all the security threats out on the internet these days everyone should be using up to date anti-virus software, a firewall of some description (software or a firewall enable broadband router) and an anti spyware program.
 














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