My Computer was hacked

[Jeff H]

Any of you guys remember when you got 10 pieces of junk mail a day? I always took the home repair questionnaires and put them in the life insurance postage free envelopes and sent them back.

I used to see how long I could keep a phone-scammer going before he hurled insults regarding my mother (their favorite) and hung up. I got to twenty minutes one day and got bored and told the guy how much he sucks at his job and he needed to find a new (REAL) one.

Too little time now and too many robo-scammers to keep up with but entities within the medical industry will contact you from three different numbers, none of which were the one by which you initially contacted them and recorded in your contacts, so sometimes you HAVE to pick up even if you don't recognize the number, because most of them could care less if you get the treatment you need or not - they'll just move on to the next cash cow....

Wait, that's just like the scammers do!

I've had credit card compromised several times:
Once, the state of Ohio lost control of my personal information;
Once, the United States Army lost control of my personal information;
SEVERAL TIMES, Anthem, Blue Cross lost control of my personal information;
SEVERAL OTHER TIMES, various entities within the medical industry lost control of my personal information - IMMEDIATELY after using a CC to pay for supplies or take care of a bill "efficiently."

I no longer is a CC for ANYTHING related to "healthcare" (as we call it) and have not had a problem since.

 

[Hawk]

Well, the damage is worse than we thought.
They hacked into our Amazon account and tried to buy a bunch of stuff.
Amazon stooped them, but they are trying to get into other accounts as well.
We got all the financial stuff and Social Security locked down.
Now to change about 100 passwords.
Can a malware virus exist on a modem or router?

 

[fiver]

i think they just work their way through your computer mining out all your info and history.

 

[Hawk]

Well, bought a new router and a new computer and had our modem replaced.
First thing we did was report our credit cards stolen. That stopped any purchase on all of our accounts that had a card attached.
Learned a lot about passwords and how long it takes to Crack them with a brute force attack. We're using a password generator to create random passwords.
14 characters is about the minimum for a really strong password.
Pass phrases are said to be just as good and easier to remember. Four, five or six random words separated by characters like @&*^ are easier to remember and may be 30 to 50 characters long. You can also substitute special characters or numbers for letters in the words.
Six character passwords can be cracked in 2 minutes. 8 characters take only 15 minutes to crack. Length seems to be the trick

It's a lot different from the 1980s when "If6was9" or was a pretty strong password.
This has been a real education.

 

[Mitty38]

You can get a virus opening an Email. Only if your provider allows scripting. Like with Microsoft outlook.
Why we are not allowed to check our email at work.

Gmail is one that dont.
To get a virus with G mail you have to click on a link or attachment once you open it.
I have Juno also
Juno allows scripting. So if I am not expecting it, I don't open it.

However if you have wi fi someone can easily hack your computer and watch what you are doing in real time, parked near by with a laptop. Unless you hook it to the router with a Ethernet cable.

Never ever get an outlook email . It is the easiest email system to hack you thru.

 

[imashooter2]

I used to see how long I could keep a phone-scammer going before he hurled insults regarding my mother (their favorite) and hung up. I got to twenty minutes one day and got bored and told the guy how much he sucks at his job and he needed to find a new (REAL) one.

-snip-

My Father would listen to the pitch and then say something like “Wow! Let me go find my credit card!" Then he’d put the phone down and replace it when he heard the "off the hook" warble. It was amazing how long some of them held the line.

 

[Jeff H]

...
However if you have wi fi someone can easily hack your computer and watch what you are doing in real time parked near by with a laptop. Unless you hook it to the router with a Ethernet cable...

I'm a hundred yards off a county road and can lose my wifi signal at about 40 feet, but my modem "sees" the neighbor in her tractor when she is on the west edge of our property.

 

[RicinYakima]

Never ever get an outlook email . It is the easiest email system to hack you thru.

Why don't you just turn scripting off?

 

[Mitty38]

Why don't you just turn scripting off?

Did not know I could do that on Juno.
Will have to check into it.

I was told that about outlook a long time ago, like in the 90's, by my computer guy at the time. So never used it past mandatory set up stuff.
So not sure about turning scripting off on it.

At work they receive scripted Emails of known origins. So I can't mess with their Ms account.

 

[Hawk]

I've got all our peripherals on our router's guest network, so a direct pass thru to the internet with no access to anything else on the network.
Our old passwords were very simple and we used them for everything

Lesson learned!