Giving a hacker remote access

[vtecstu]

Just off the phone to my parents. They were on their home pc earlier, and got a security message from their firewall / AntiVirus saying that XXX is trying to access their computer - do you trust them? For reasons I can't imagine, they clicked 'yes'.

Their email account has subsequently re-sent a load of sent messages, and everything in the inbox has been deleted (not in deleted messages either). Could this have been lifted onto another machine?

Is this likely just to have been a kid trying to annoy people in school holidays, or is it possible that they got information they could use from elsewhere in the computer? Mail account wouldn't have much in it apart from passwords to Amazon etc, but again I'm guessing that could only be used for annoyance purposes since only a really stupid hacker would get stuff delivered to their own house...

Would the pc store any information that could give someone access to parents' internet banking? Is it possible that a keylogger or something could have been installed? They've done a full virus scan that found nothing - should that mean nothing to worry about, or is it worth getting a techy friend to have a look at their machine?

Cheers in advance for advice - they're stressing out about it at the moment and going on holiday tomorrow...

[vtecstu]

Cheers guys. Pc will definitely be off while they're away, although more for power saving than security reasons...!

[vtecstu]

mattley said:

I'd also double check home security as if their email has been compromised there is every chance that someone somewhere knows they're on holibobs next week.

Thanks - that one had occurred but they have a pretty decent alarm system and a neighbour in daily to water stuff.

[vtecstu]

TonyRPH said:

vtecstu said:

Cheers guys. Pc will definitely be off while they're away, although more for power saving than security reasons...!

Just to re-iterate.

Ensure it is unplugged (or the broadband is unplugged) it's quite possible that software has been installed to "wake it up" (in the event it is left in standby) and 'call home'. (the hackers 'home').

I'm playing devils advocate here, so sorry if this seems a little OTT.

Thanks for clarifying - had no idea that was possible!

[vtecstu]

Thanks again for everyone's help. Parents now on holiday, but PC has been unplugged and mail and Amazon passwords should have been changed. Hopefully that's limited what could be done while the PC isn't in use...

Think they have some friends more techy than me that can help them copy data off and reformat when they return. Assume it's a case of turning router off (so that PC can't communicate with hacker or vice versa), copying all data to CD or USB stick (they don't have an external HD), and then reformatting and reinstalling? Probably a little beyond me to be honest, but will pass on the knowledge when they're back so they can have the same conversation with someone clever!

Cheers guys!