Replies

I'm not sure exactly how it was done. I could find no worms or back doors. My desktop is up and running 24/7 and I have my e-mail prog, which at the time was Windows Live, running and open on the desk top. I had a port open that was connected to a game that I should have closed and I assume they used it. I have programs using some thirty different ports but I manually close them all when done, but forgot one. I don't even allow remote assist. I have two firewalls and a AV, plus I do frequent scans with a online heuristic scanner.

One day I looked at my e-mail and two of some thirty folders were missing. One was labeled "personal" and the other Investments". They were gone, the folder and all content as if someone dragged and dropped them.

The only other way, other than a hack, would have been to insert a stick into the machine directly and take the data.

One thing that might have helped me is that the data was encrypted by windows live mail. It's possible that it was unusable, but I changed all my banking and investment account numbers and passwords anyway as soon as I saw the stuff was gone. And it is gone. Multiple searches have come up with nothing, nothing at all.

Right now I have it so buttoned up, my own wireless network can't find my computer. It sees a unknown device...LOL BTW, I use Windows VISTA on that machine and it's fully updated. It's been a very secure setup for a couple years now with no bugs. I think it must have been a hack and I have no idea how but game ports are easy to scan for and I'll bet it happened while I was online and right under my nose. The e-mail client was already running so there would be no way for any firewall to stop it. IMO

As to logins, I have a login but I was already logged in. What these bozos can do, is find you while you are connected to the internet. Once they find you they do a port scan. They find a port they can use and somehow they can get in without tripping the defenses and VISTA has a crapload of them.

I decided that perhaps they used the e-mail client so I disabled windows live, and went back to windows mail. It is less functional and has a lousy interface but I never lost anything with it and have used it for many years. Windows live has a complicate interface with connections to MS Office, MS chat and messaging and more. It seems to me that the more a e-mail client does the riskier it becomes so I quit using it just as a precaution. I miss some of the features but like I said, I am cautious now. If they can hack google, they can get anyone.