PC hacking and snooping

Use a router with a firewall, have your firewall set to stealth mode, this will help with most things.

If you have a wireless home network, make sure you have wpa security on it.

If you are still worried ditch the PC and get a Macintosh.

I'd say garyi has covered the basic security so far as getting at your PC from the outside world (usual caveat of run regular anti-spyware, update your antivirus every day and check for Windows updates frequently).

You mention email. Usually you collect this from your ISP over POP3, which means if someone knows your username and password they could do so themselves (most have webmail facilities too so it wouldn't be obvious someone had read your email).

Assuming your have a complex password I doubt they would guess it, so you're then into the realms of whether or not someone could get access via your ISP "Hello, it's Diccus62 and I've lost my password" etc.

I'd say it's pretty unlikely but worth mentioning.

Gary

Thanks

I have a BT router but don't know whether it has a firewall. We use Windows firewall and AVG free anti virus software

Haven't at present got wireless

Regards

Diccus

Diccus

Good advice above. Have a look at the IP addresses on your PC. If they are 10.something then this is good news, as the potential hacker cannot access your PCs directly - he would need to break into the router. Your rooter is hiding your PCs from the Internet (10.something addresses are not allowed on the Internet) - thus your router translates outgoing traffic to its address and sends return traffic back your PC (wjicj is what you want). Anybody on the Internet trying to access you can only get as far as the address of your router, it will not forward this attempt to your PC.

However, this does not stop a program on your PC sending out things - the best protection against this is anti-virus software and ant-spyware software (the idea being to remove such programs). The Zone Alarm personal firewall is also useful as it reacts to applications accessing the Internet and asks you if you wish to allow it or not - I think it is free.

Again none of the measures are full proof, but if you use them all then you make life very hard for the hacker. Recent research shows hackers like easy targets so making sure you're not an easy target will help a great deal.

You may wish to go t a site called Sheilds-Up - this will do an analysis of your PC and give you and indicator of how vulnerable it is.

With email treat it like a postcard - I always think of it as as safe as a postcard. If you want it more secure then you'll need to use something like digital certificates to secure it.

That Shields up is cool. Apparentely i got full stealth capability

I appear to be Stealthy as well

Cheers ROTF

Diccus

Hmm... me too. 100% stealth coverage, my computer is 'invisible' If this is so, however, why do I get the (occasional) security message from Norton informing me of an attempt to access my computer?

Malky

I've seen Norton give messages of this type even when a computer's not connected to the Internet - it always errs on the side of caution - i.e better to alert you when there's nothing to worry about than not alert you when there's a problem - all security systems do it, it's not a fault.

Shields Up is fairly good - Steve Gibson, the author, detests hackers and does his best to help us out.

My router is not 100% stealthy BTW, as it responds to ICMP (ping), but my Mac is well hidden behind it.

Rotf

Cheers for that. I suppose you're as vulnerable as your firewall and your attackers ability to get past it.
I don't suppose you would even know, in many cases, whether you'd been hacked or not. Personally, I'm meticulous as I can be about giving out personal info, checking bank statements thoroughly etc... to ensure there are no transactions I can't account for.

I believe I've seen reports that most ID theft is accomplished by using paper - discarded junk mail, credit card flimsies, etc.

Do you shred anything with personal info that you discard? Do you have important identifying data printed on your checks? And so forth....

Best of luck.

Phil

cheers Mike, the stalking was not previously internet or email based twas in real life. the authorities were involved

regards

Diccus