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Could I have been hacked?

18 years ago

I was going through my recycle bin and noticed a file for every name of my outlook email folders such as send, delete,and so forth. The file was made and deleted at the same time yesterday and I did not do this. Could I have been hacked and information sent out to a hacker or would updates from Outlook put the files in the recycle bin? I do need to get a good firewall put in but I can not afford one right now. Any free good firewalls out there ? TIA montana_jan

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Comments (8)

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Christopher Nelson Wallcovering and Painting
18 years ago
look here and pick

Here is a link that might be useful: furewalls
owbist
18 years ago
Ian certainly use Christopher's link to select a firewall. Zonealarm is probably the most used free one. I used Comodo for a long while, it is good but requires a little more user input I found.

You might want to turn this thread into a total security set of questions for your computer.

I suggest that because something seems to have been allowed to set up on your computer in the first place. All safety programs can be found that are free. You should seriously consider - besides an anti virus program which I hope you have - a couple of anti malware programs. These need to be updated of course and ran every so often. The free programs usually are not automatic, they require you to manually update and run. This is not difficult.

If by chance you are using AdAwareSE personal I believe support for it will end December 30th. I found the new AdAware2007 to need considerably more resources to run so I got rid of that and replaced it with Superantispyware. I also run AVG anti spyware, AVG anti rootkit, Spybot Search & Destroy, Spywareblaster and BOClean. Not all on the same machine of course but I do keep 3 on each computer.
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off topic but i think Joanne's email has been hacked
Q
Comments (9)
Thank you, Aurora, great explanations. Lucky, very funny! Silvana, no, you did not get hacked and don't have to do anything. I got hacked because I did not follow my own advice. I got an email from an unfamiliar address on a topic I did not recognize with a link that was also unfamiliar. So, there were three clues. But I clicked away. That is all it takes, one click, for a hacker to be able to clone something that resembles a person's name and address. To get rid of a spam email, just send it to the spam folder on your email account, then empty the spam folder. You can change your password if you want. I put a more complete explanation on a new thread. However, Aurora explained it better than I could! It would be good if the Moderators would read this and remove the two posts with the bogus links on them. I will try to contact the Moderators to have those two posts by the hacker removed from the threads, however, I don't think that was what caused the hacking of my email. Joanne This post was edited by fortyseven on Wed, Nov 26, 14 at 0:45
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"Edit post" Been Hacked!
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Comments (14)
I constantly get these video pop ups here. They are very annoying and cover part of the page that you are trying to read. I know that this is a GW problem. When I switch to Facebook, I never ever get a pop up. So My feeling is that GW server/system allows these pop ups to pop up.
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I guess I've been hacked
Q
Comments (22)
I have had the same hotmail account since the day I got on the internet, so a LONG time, and never once had a problem with spam, hacking, or anything else. There were the occasional growing glitches as they changed the system over the years but I have been very happy with it. I personally never use the email that is provided by my ISP. The only time we did was way back in the days of MSN dial up! and even then I had my hotmail. So I do not think there is anything better about ISP over free either. I much prefer all of my freebies. I think since I have been on comcast I may have checked that email address I got there once in 2 yrs. And lo and behold it was full of spam LOL and never used. Passwords are key!!I tell my family that all the time and still they use their dogs name as their password, my neice's daughter helped her friends set up facebook and twitter accounts and she used the same password for ALL of them. She just could not understand why I nearly had a stroke on that one. I just give up. What does it take to create a password? To protect your savings and your identity? I personally keep a note book that has all my sites and their associated user name and password. I write it in there every time I get a new one or change one. I keep that notebook in a very secure locked location. Now if at some point a burglar manages to break into my house, kill me and my husband, steal my computers and also manage to find and steal my password notebook well at that point he can have it. Because I am pretty sure he will be bleeding pretty badly himself, and I won't need it. LOL
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OMG - Seeding Tomatoes - How Could I Have Been Such a Dunce??
Q
Comments (10)
We learn things a certain way and take so much for granted. I was lucky, my GM taught me to cut tomatoes horizontally (after peeling) and then just give 'em a quick squeeze, with the cut side aimed towards where you want the seeds to go. Then if you want the tomatoes chopped up a bit...keep squeezing, but over the pot...the pieces will fall. Her philosophy was.. there's no point in canning tomato seeds and extra water... Nancy
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montana_jan
Original Author
18 years ago
thanks , I will add what I need this morning. You people are great! Montana_Jan
daylilydayzed
18 years ago
I can recommend a free firewall , Ashampoo Firewall . It is the one I use.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ashampoo Firewall
mikie_gw
18 years ago
Thought I was here before... must have forgot to press Submit.

Outlook Express compacts the email/folders every 100 opens, or closes. They put a back_up copy of everything into the Recycle bin before doing the cleaning, just incase they screw up the process and lose all your mail. Which they do on some computer configurations.
montana_jan
Original Author
18 years ago
thanks Mikie-- I am so glad to hear this! I think that is what happened. I did download the needed items, so I am glad it all worked out the way it did. Thanks again to everyone that posted suggestions. Montana_Jan
Bill_zone6
18 years ago
Had problems (very slow download) using Zone Alarm with Vista Home. Have been using PC Tools Firewall Plus (free) with good success. Believe Windows didn't like Zone Alarm even with Windows Firewall turned off.
mikie_gw
18 years ago
Vista comes with a much praised firewall. Rather amazing the configurations available actually.

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