About Hackers

What is a hacker?

For ease of use, the term "hacker" will be used here to refer to either a hacker or cracker, as someone who enters or tries to enter your computer or network without authorization.

Personal information, names address, financial information, even the account information for your ISP and passwords, in short anything stored on your computer can be obtained by the hacker. The Trojan may even be able to record each and every keystroke you make, save the info to a hidden file and then when you go online upload the file to the hacker's computer. This means that even if you don't keep personal info or passwords on your computer the hacker can still obtain them from the keystroke log he uploaded.

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How can I tell if my computer has been "hacked" or broken into?

Some telltale symptoms are:

• Mysterious files suddenly appearing.
• CD drawer opening and closing by itself
• Runtime errors in MS Outlook/Outlook Express.
• Finding emails in your sent items folder that you didn't send.
• Files moved or deleted unexpectedly.
• Icons on your desktop or toolbars are blank or missing.
• Mouse feels sluggish, like someone else is trying to control it.

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