SNOOPERS on hard drive

[spde]

Please tell me how someone managed to get onto my hard drive and access parts of emails. Can they also access instant messages? Where do instant messages go once they are closed out? Is there a log or a recording somewhere? I thought there was only a log if you created one. I really need to know where they were able to go and be able to print out parts of emails, etc.
Thanks

 

[paulwood]

One way hackers can get in is via an IRC (Internet Relay Chat - used for instant messaging) trojan, which will open an ip port on your machine to let the hacker in. Once in, they can do almost anything they like. An up to date virus scanner should be able to nail them, and a good firewall should be able to block the port being opened.

As for a log (?) I get a log of attempted intrusions from Zone Alarm, my firewall (highly recommended!), which allows me to locate persistent offenders via the seperate Zonelog Analyser program.

Hope this helps

 

[spde]

Where do I find Zone Alarm?

 

[paulwood]

http://www.zonealarm.com

Go for the free download rather than the Pro version initially, although I upgraded to Pro for a modest cost.