Computer Security

[Meatball]

A friend of mine came home and found that someone had changed the password on her yahoo e-mail. So she requested a password change.
Next day she came home and found her yahoo e-mail had been sabotaged. The perpetrator had erased all her folders and sent out horrific e-mails in her "name". She lives alone so no one had access to her computer. although she somtimes lets a friend use it when she is in the room.

1) how is this possible?
2) how can she catch the creep



<IMG SRC="http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/philex/meatball1.jpg">

[Bill From Yorktown]

you forgot to mention that her password was
1 - her pet
2 - password
or
3 - her first name

if she can't tell from the internet history log on her pc if whoever else was using her pc, it was probably someone who guessed the pass.

Oh yea - one more thing - she should check the time on the emails versus when her "friend" used the pc to see if there's a match there too....

I'd guess someone guessed her password.



<IMG SRC="http://hometown.aol.com/billb914/sigpic.gif">

This message was edited by Bill From Yorktown on 6-18-03 @ 3:24 PM

[ToddEVF]

it could be the work of a melicious hacker who had somehow gotten her ip address and hacked into her system. Certain programs log the passwords and stuff and if you know what your doing you can get that info from them. I don't knowthe specifics, but it could have also been from a worm program. there are so many things that it can be. the best thing to do is start a new account and make sure the yahoo thing is on secure, which means it prompt you for your password every minute or so

[center][b]<font size=2 color=333366>
<marquee behavior=alternate scrolldelay=30>I've been Tromatized</marquee>
http://members.aol.com/TheToddsterLSP/sigpics/evftnn.gif
<marquee>I miss my quote marquee :( </marquee>
<a href=http://www.showchoir.com/~justinc79/troma/terror_media/toddster.wav>The Toddster (the soundclip) </a href>

[furie]

These changes keep happening when she comes home
*GASP*
The hacker is inside the house, I repeat the hacker is inside the house!!!

<img src="http://tseery.homestead.com/files/bixby.jpg"width=300 height=100>

[HordeKing1]

Thank Bill Gates.

Security holes allow a hacker who knows what they're doing to take control over your computer simply by sending you an e-mail. Some of these e-mails were able to take over your computer w/o having to be opened.

There was recently an article in PC World about this. It seems indemic to all MS OS. Recently a whole bunch of security glitches were uncovered. MS addresses this routinely in patches. (Of course, as in the recent XP patch, new, sometimes worse problems arise. I think a patch of the patch has been released for XP already.

Make sure that your friend updates windows automatically and that she always installs all critical updates.

Suggest she install and regullarly run spybot search and destroy and a firewall (zone alarm is free and excellent).

She should immediately notify the ISP. Occasionally they can track the person down. Unfortunately, spammers frequently steal legitimate addresses and send out ads with the person's name attached.

Finally, so as not to overlook the obvious, does anyone have direct access to her computer?

<center><img border=1 src="http://members.aol.com/rnfpantera/hking1"></center>