*HELP* I think I may have been hijacked.

[AK47frizzle]

f*ck, I think my laptop has been hijacked for some strange reasons.

I started typing on a guitar forum, I was typing, "I used finger picks for a while but they just didn't feel right."

I spelt "didn't" wrong, I highlighted it and deleted it, suddenly, my whole sentence disappeared. I thought it was just random and just continued.

So i undid the deleted (ctrl + z) and it came back. I highlighted the same word again, and bam, the whole thing went a second time.

I undid it once more but this time it went in a spasm, highlighting all sorts of random words and deleting them.

Then suddenly it started typing random words itself and before I could reach for the cursor, I saw a this troll smiley face "" that had been typed on to it.

Then the mouse started acting up and deleted my bookmarks and bloody took the google chrome tabs out and deleting some.

Before I knew it, the browser started switching sizes from full screen to minimizing and going back to desktop.

I tried to take control of the mouse but it went fookin everywhere.

It highlighted random sh-i-t and closed random apps.

Basically it went in a spasm.

So i held both my hands out like I was being told to freeze by a police man and watched the crazy nuisance that went on for a few min, random applications like spotify and Advanced systemcare moving up and down and minimizing and maximizing.

Fookin hell, it was scary.

So I then ended it by pressing the off button. But even that took as a while as it was trying to force quit apps.

So I switched it on again.... it was fine. I got norton to scan for viruses, i mean seriously, I was f uckin scared as hell.

It said it found 46 tracking cookies.... no idea what they are.

I think someone may have got onto my laptop and messed with my controls. So now I have blue tacked the webcam just incase and i'm not speaking incase they have control of my microphone.

It's fine for now... but that was the scariest thing i have ever experience....

please... someone, WHAT THE F UCK HAPPENED?!

ALSO! When i looked at my chrome history, i noticed that facebook, airsoft forums and youtube had a star beside it because i was viewing them at the time...... what is that also?

 

[AK47frizzle]

fuck, it acting up again, i need to get this checked it. I'm being serious

 

[geoffreym]

Turn off the laptop now, send it to a professional and monitor your bank accounts.

 

[sp00n]

Could be some form of spyware, have you got adaware? ( think that's spelled right)

 

[Bottledtorment]

Best thing to do is format the PC pal and pray that it hasn't infected the BIOS

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Do all that was suggested previously- Monitor any bank accounts or payment accounts and reformat the thing.

Do you have any remote admin programs installed like LogMeIn? Some arsehole could have gotten a hold of it.

Better to just reformat it and pray to the Omnissiah that it has not got to the Machine spirit/BIOS.

 

[AK47frizzle]

well actually, i'm getting a new, better laptop in a month or so. So i'm not all that worried what happens to this as it is a piece of junk and not worth blowing more money into fixing it, but it was traumatic.

I have no money accounts so it is fine. I'm using a dell mini right now.... soo... i'll survive using this for now.

 

[Moose87]

doesnt matter if there is.money in your account or.not as if they try to.charge stuff to it and it.fails then still looks bad for you. i agree with the above get a proffessional sweep of it. remember if your getting rid of the laptop then have the hard drive destroyed so no one can ever access it.

 

[Russe11]

-1st thing: Norton is shite. Get a decent antivirus package.

-With the computer disconnected from the internet, run a full virus scan or even better format the drive and reinstall everything.

-You could also go into the control panel and uninstall every program that you don't recognise.

-if it happens again, the 1st thing you do is disconnect the internet.

 

[Esoterick]

To be honest a lot of the companies that do bugsweeps do terrible jobs, i've had to clean up their messes at work quite a few times. I've seen everything from machines coming back not clean through to them doing ridiculous stuff like installing a Vista partition for no apparent reason.

In cases where they get access to your bank details it is very common for the bank to pick up on it and block their/your access immediately. However I think i've seen viruses/bugs actually skim bank details maybe twice working in IT for 5 years. Regardless, it goes without saying you shouldn't continue using a computer that looks like it might be infected - Also don't whatever you do try and copy stuff off it onto another computer using a USB stick as bugs will happily replicate across.

It would, however be advisable to change the passwords for all of your accounts you access through the internet on a clean computer as it is a lot more likely they will keylog things like your email account passwords.

The problem with bugs/virsuses is that they will frequently bypass antivirus software if they essentially give you a prompt to continue and you choose yes. These days the most common ones pose as updates to software such as Java and Chrome - I used to go on a dodgy website that had its adverts hijacked so a new window would open saying Chrome was out of date, or Java. Thing is Chrome updates without prompt and Java creates a popup down by the clock(system tray)

Without intending to come across as patronising the best thing to do when anything comes up that looks strange is to close it immediately. Also make sure you update Windows, Java and your Antivirus software regularly.

As for the tracking cookies they typically aren't anything to worry about as things like giving your country or date of birth to access a website are considered tracking cookies.

 

[Del Monty]

Download Avast Anti-virus (its free but has subscription options as well), install and run a sweep , also download a program called CCcleaner and run a sweep of that too, you can run a sweep of CCcleaner after each browser session if you wish, but once/twice is a week is more then enough.

 

[Lord_Metile]

When you boot your PC, run in safe mode and see if you can troubleshoot.