Virus or something. . .

[pjchappy]

I think I had some virus or have been hacked. . .my PC was doing strange things. I had noticed my Zone Alarm was off. . .and my XP firewall off. How much control/damage can someone do to my PC?. . .call me paranoid, but I noticed a lot of activity, etc. w/o my use and things were changing. Also, beyond this, in my recent move, I must have reset my wireless router, leaving unsecured. . . I'm sure all my stored passwords, etc. were jacked.

Is there anyway to tell if I've been infected? Am I just paranoid?

I'm retarded. . .but I did a complete reinstall I will not be so dumb. . .

p

 

[Howling Wolf]

You could try the firewall I use: Sygate's Personal Firewall (Pro, but not free, www.sygate.com): there's an option to prevent the service to be disabled and also to block all traffic if the service is not loaded. I feel really secure with it
What antivirus are you using ? Update it and run a full scan of your pc. I use Kaspersky's AV, very good if not the best (my opinion, www.kaspersky.com).

 

[pjchappy]

I use AVG; but, I had disabled it several days ago and forgot to turn it back on.

HOPEFULLY, I was just paranoid. However, I got a STRONG impression I was hacked/lost some control of my PC. . .DOH!

I did a complete re-install just to be safe. . .and things are fine and I will be EXTRA careful from now on. . .

BTW, what COULD a hacker do w/ control of my PC. I just don't need Mr. Authority knocking down my door for something I didn't do, you know!

p

 

[Tweakfiend]

I use AVG; but, I had disabled it several days ago and forgot to turn it back on.

HOPEFULLY, I was just paranoid. However, I got a STRONG impression I was hacked/lost some control of my PC. . .DOH!

I did a complete re-install just to be safe. . .and things are fine and I will be EXTRA careful from now on. . .

BTW, what COULD a hacker do w/ control of my PC. I just don't need Mr. Authority knocking down my door for something I didn't do, you know!

p

Try a "control alt delete" in Safe mode to activate System Manager, or "Hijackthis" free program to see what is running ( if anything) in the background.
You could possibly delete anything with indecipherable multiple letters/digits .