I am BEGGING you guys to PLEASE HELP me! I have been HACKED!!!

[MOTU_Maniac]

Most of my accounts (e-mail, paypal, amazon, walmart, ebay, etc) have been hacked into!!

It started with an e-mail from Walmart EARLY yesterday morning telling me my e-mail address had been updated. It was not a phishing e-mail. It was an actual e-mail from Walmart. So, I go over to walmart.com and check. Sure enough, it had been changed without my permission. I looked into orders that had been placed and had someone very nice at walmart.com tell me the order #. So, I was able to see the order and hence the person's name, address, phone, e-mail, etc. I was able to finally found out they purchased an ipad for $533.93. I luckily got it cancelled.

Then I start through my other websites and start with "A" since it is at the top of the list and sure enough, Amazon had been hacked...9 orders totaling $2,020.64. They are in the process of being cancelled.

Then I call and cancel my cards and put my accounts on fraud alert.

I then go through all of my accounts and passwords and change them (ebay, paypal, etc). So, I thought after 10 hours working on it yesterday that everything was under control.

At 12:40am this morning I get an e-mail that my paypal account e-mail address has changed....and of course PayPal customer service don't open so you can talk to them until 7am!! Grrr. So no sleep for 2 nights now

I kept messing around and see that my paypal address link on my ebay has changed to an e-mail account of mine that was also hacked this morning. So, I rush back over to paypal and enter that e-mail address and they state that they need to call me at one of the phone #'s listed to verify my account. I click a button asking them to call me at a different # since those other 2 #'s were not mine. I enter my home phone # and immediately get an automated call from paypal at about 6am this morning and they gave me a code to reset my password, so I was able to get in with my hacked e-mail address. Thankfully they hadn't taken any money out of paypal yet so I withdrew all of it and changed lots of info.

Now I am worried what is next?

I have unplugged all cables, run my computer antivirus software 3x, cleaned my registry, etc. I also had remote access enabled on my computer and have since disabled it.

It just feels like someone is IN my computer. What do I need to do? PLEASE help me. I am begging you!!!

[Nemisythe]

Check and make sure your remote access feature is not on or activated (if you are using Microsoft Windows).

[MOTU_Maniac]

Check and make sure your remote access feature is not on or activated (if you are using Microsoft Windows).

I have unplugged all cables, run my computer antivirus software 3x, cleaned my registry, etc. I also had remote access enabled on my computer and have since disabled it.

I did notice it was enabled earlier this morning and have since disabled it. Will that solve the problem? Or can someone still get in?

Any other advice?

[blackiecats]

I did notice it was enabled earlier this morning and have since disabled it. Will that solve the problem? Or can someone still get in?

Any other advice?

Perhaps it's worth closing your accounts and starting afresh on places like Amazon, Wal-Mart etc...?

Also do you have access to another computer? If so I'd try changing account info such as email on a different pc/laptop as I guess it must be your computer that has some kinds of Malware/Spyware...

Have you run Malware Bytes? that's usually good at catching this kinda stuff and nuking it.

[13977]

I did notice it was enabled earlier this morning and have since disabled it. Will that solve the problem? Or can someone still get in?

Any other advice?

If they were using the remote access feature of Windows to hack in to your PC then it will solve it but if they were using another method then it won't. Unfortunately it would be difficult to determine how they were able to gain to your PC.

You seem to have done the most important steps and changed all your passwords. Do you used an email client on your PC such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or do you use webmail? Either way change your password, check the rule settings to make sure nobody is getting automatically CC'd in, also check your sent items to see if any email have been sent that weren't actually sent by yourself.

You've done a virus scan and registry clean, I'd also install and run CCleaner to clean all your Temp Internet Files, Windows Temp Files and cache, and as blackiecats advised above run Malware Bytes to clean any malware infections.

[MOTU_Maniac]

Perhaps it's worth closing your accounts and starting afresh on places like Amazon, Wal-Mart etc...?

Also do you have access to another computer? If so I'd try changing account info such as email on a different pc/laptop as I guess it must be your computer that has some kinds of Malware/Spyware...

Have you run Malware Bytes? that's usually good at catching this kinda stuff and nuking it.

Thanks for the advice. Markatisu also mentioned malwarebytes so I have since dowloaded it and it is currently scanning. No objects detected so far....

- - - Updated - - -

If they were using the remote access feature of Windows to hack in to your PC then it will solve it but if they were using another method then it won't. Unfortunately it would be difficult to determine how they were able to gain to your PC.

You seem to have done the most important steps and changed all your passwords. Do you used an email client on your PC such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or do you use webmail? Either way change your password, check the rule settings to make sure nobody is getting automatically CC'd in, also check your sent items to see if any email have been sent that weren't actually sent by yourself.

You've done a virus scan and registry clean, I'd also install and run CCleaner to clean all your Temp Internet Files, Windows Temp Files and cache, and as blackiecats advised above run Malware Bytes to clean any malware infections.

I did change all passwords, BUT they gained access to my paypal account after I canged the password

Also, my wife's account that was linked to my paypal was the one compromised and she is still battling with yahoo to regain access so I don't know if any e-mails were sent out or not

Everytime I fix something they gain access to something else. Soon they will probably hack my he-man.org account

[AGE]

hey brother..

i feel your pain it happened to me years ago.. you should also contact any credit folks.. in Canada we have Equifax and a couple others.. i think the US has something like this..

basically call them let me know what is going on .. and they will red flag your name for 7 years.. make sure no one else is trying to get Credit cards etc in your name.

[MOTU_Maniac]

hey brother..

i feel your pain it happened to me years ago.. you should also contact any credit folks.. in Canada we have Equifax and a couple others.. i think the US has something like this..

basically call them let me know what is going on .. and they will red flag your name for 7 years.. make sure no one else is trying to get Credit cards etc in your name.

I ran malwarebytes, but it found nothing.

They just hacked my wife's ebay account and purchased 2 iphones 20 minutes ago.

It never ends

[AGE]

I ran malwarebytes, but it found nothing.

They just hacked my wife's ebay account and purchased 2 iphones 20 minutes ago.

It never ends

shut down all your accounts, everything.... contact your Credit card companies all of them and your wife... have them close all the cards and issue new ones,

then do a large sweep of the comp, maybe bring it in to have it looked at

do not give them anything.. but also make sure that your fraud department has your name on file because this person could also have your name and address and issue credit cards to what ever address.

[diosoth]

I hate to say it but catching them may be difficult. You might have an address where they got stuff mailed to, but if they're in any way smart then it's some bogus location where mail can go, but no one lives and they just pick it up. I would assume they're in the US if they're getting stuff mailed- maybe. THEY might be foreign, and have someone in the US middle-manning their package receiving to forward on. That person could be arrested, but proving they knew of fraud may be hard... but odds are if they're doing it to you, they've done it to lots of others. Though if they live in a country with no real laws or an unwillingness to do anything then they'll go free.

You can report the crimes but oyur only real recourse is to close all bank and credit accounts, any and all online store accounts, and start fresh. Your PC... depending on how bad it's infected you may clean it- assuming your PC is the issue, and it's not another "some company's database got hacked" thing- but the only 100% safe guarantee may be to yank your HDD, replace it and go fresh. Take the old HDD to a professional shot, have them scan and possibly clean, then use it as a secondary drive for data. Some malware can be hard to clean, because the malware itself actually interferes with security programs on the PC. Pluggign the drive into anothe rPC seems to be the sure way to get around that. However, somehow I suspect it's more than your PC being compromised, too many companies got their databases hacked... how old are your credit, debit cards and all that? Did they belong to any company that got hacked some time ago but never informed people?

[AGE]

agreed 100000&

start fresh!!! this is your best bet.

I hate to say it but catching them may be difficult. You might have an address where they got stuff mailed to, but if they're in any way smart then it's some bogus location where mail can go, but no one lives and they just pick it up. I would assume they're in the US if they're getting stuff mailed- maybe. THEY might be foreign, and have someone in the US middle-manning their package receiving to forward on. That person could be arrested, but proving they knew of fraud may be hard... but odds are if they're doing it to you, they've done it to lots of others. Though if they live in a country with no real laws or an unwillingness to do anything then they'll go free.

You can report the crimes but oyur only real recourse is to close all bank and credit accounts, any and all online store accounts, and start fresh. Your PC... depending on how bad it's infected you may clean it- assuming your PC is the issue, and it's not another "some company's database got hacked" thing- but the only 100% safe guarantee may be to yank your HDD, replace it and go fresh. Take the old HDD to a professional shot, have them scan and possibly clean, then use it as a secondary drive for data. Some malware can be hard to clean, because the malware itself actually interferes with security programs on the PC. Pluggign the drive into anothe rPC seems to be the sure way to get around that. However, somehow I suspect it's more than your PC being compromised, too many companies got their databases hacked... how old are your credit, debit cards and all that? Did they belong to any company that got hacked some time ago but never informed people?

[MOTU_Maniac]

I appreciate those that have helped. Thank you. Still fighting....

[Judith]

I'm sorry to hear this! How very frustrating to keep fighting when you go through the proper protocol. Please keep us posted!

[TheDeviot]

Sorry to hear about that man.

I can't really add much, what other's have said is true. Your best bet is to freeze/cancel any accounts you have, start new ones to replace them.
As for the PC you'll probably want to either reformat the drive you have before reinstalling the OS, software, and updates. Alternatively you can replace the
hard disk entirely with a new one, and reinstall your OS, software, updates. Hopefully anything important was backed up to an external drive as reformatting
does blank the drive. If not you may want to do that first or pay someone to do it first.

When you get all situated you may want to sign up for something like LifeLock if you can afford it. It's a service that monitors all of your accounts for takeover fraud.
A few people I've met who used it swear by it, because it told them stuff was fishy before their actual bank saw something didn't add up. They'll also do stuff for ID theft protection
like your SS#, etc. etc.

As far as security software goes, if you want a pay one the best one I've used has been Kaspersky. In my experience it finds more than anything else I've tried (Free or Pay),
and it uses a lot less RAM, and updates on the hour rather than day. As far as decent FREE stuff, SuperAntispyware, Malwarebytes, and Microsoft Live Security Essentials are pretty
respectable.

Anyway good luck with everything man.

[Phil.Pastel]

I switched to Ubuntu Linux 3 years ago. Firefox works very well on Linux, it's native platform. It's free. Give it a try.

Linux doesn't ask you a lot of questions about your identity. Windows wants to know who you are in case you're using it illegally. So, anonynimity is impossible. Linux doesn't care. It doesn't ask any questions. My computer has no idea who or where I am. That's a good thing.

[GeologyMule]

It doesn't do any good to change a password if they have a keylogger on your machine.

Go to a different machine and change everything. Create a new email and change all your Amazons, ebays, wal-marts email to them. Change security questions, and passwords. Then get on your main machine and make sure it is clean. A little more complicated but you have to make sure the malware is gone.

[markatisu]

Yeah I think its a keylogger as well, that would be one of the only ways they know every password. Even with his SSN the best they could do is find out his CC's but not his paypal or eBay

[13977]

Have a look in Programs and Features (or Add/Remove Programs depending on your version of Windows) in Control Panel and see if there's anything listed you don't think should be installed on your PC.
It might sound obvious but its worth checking.

[Divia]

Yeah I think its a keylogger as well, that would be one of the only ways they know every password. Even with his SSN the best they could do is find out his CC's but not his paypal or eBay

I'm super dumb with this stuff, so how does one get access to a person's computer?

[MOTU_Maniac]

No activity in last 48 hours, but still a nervous wreck. Haven't eaten or slept in 3 days.

Thanks again for all that helped, offered advice, and checked on me.

[Dave-Man]

I went through this when I had a computer stolen a few years ago. Had to shut down everything, get new credit cards, change every password, the works. Nobody ever tried to hack any of my stuff (I believe the thief was more interested in pawning the computer for quick cash than ID theft), but man was I scared for a few months. I hate that feeling.

[Heidi]

Hi,

I don't have any advice to give, just wanted to say that I'm rooting for you! Hang in there and do try to get some sleep while your hanging in there.

[diosoth]

I'm super dumb with this stuff, so how does one get access to a person's computer?

Trojan programs. Used to be people had to actively download infected files- the old "open this email attachment to see a birthday card from grandma" or "working N64 emulator!" back when computers couldn't handle the N64. Then they started infecting ad banners through ActiveX flaws, mostly porn sites. Then they figured out how to infect people through Firefox and are now to the point where any server that delivers ad banners can be infected, making just about any website that serves those ads a potential infection source.

[MOTU_Maniac]

Thanks everyone. Like I said, I am just a nervous, paranoid wreck now. I had exercised EVERY day for the previous 38 days (until this happened), but in the last 3 days I have NOT exercised and have lost 7 pounds. Who said stress isn't good for losing weight

I don't use IM, but did notice several IM convesations in my yahoo e-mail this morning that took place over the last month that were made up of jiberish codes and stuff.

Again, you all don't know how much it means to me to have you try to help me, encourage me, check on me, etc. I am a basket case right now....and nothing has happened in 48 hours now. I want to believe I got everything taken care of, but I just don't know.

Not only did they try to take my money, etc...they took my peace of mind

[Bobubott]

I can't help with the technical stuff, but I used to be a fraud investigator for an online retailer. PM if you have any questions about possibly filing a police report and I'll try to help. I may be able to give you some advice on next steps you could take or whether it's even worth pursuing with law enforcement. Sadly, most police investigations into cases like these never go anywhere, but I can help you size up your odds of getting something done.