Not new member but new account never been through this so would appreciate any advice. Feel free to roast the shit out of me because I feel like I deserve it. Quick backstory try to give you the baby not nine months. So first things first this did not happen on sister side (as you all know) or anything to do with down loading or going anywhere suspicious. I have always used a VPN when I discovered all of you amazing people sister/pro.. I purchased one just after researching before I started now never had a problem everything has always been cool followed the directions initially on a certain sub Reddit (again you know) well my dumb ass was switching browsers because I thought one would be better than the other so when in the process of configuring the settings to the new browser I got a little confused linking and spent maybe 20 minutes at the most figuring everything out settings wise. With this a few minutes going by my computer I noticed seeing very small subtle things in the recent section of start menu Then very shortly after I am locked out of my own computer this dude has his name on the start up screen where you login and running it as administrator so I just unplugged the fucker and disconnected the Wi-Fi router power plug.. so I got spooked and just decided to wipe everything clean factory reset right from the start as I didn’t know what else to do and to be honest was stressing to say the least. So now if you have made it through this long ass post can somebody please shine some light on the safest way to go about getting my computer back up where this dude won’t have any control. I even got a different VPN account and company that I plan to use initially when I set my PC back up. Again just wanted to ask for advice before starting over please guys any advice would be appreciated and I apologize if this is in the wrong section or if this has already been discussed in this exact way thanks again brothers.

 

a VPN should not have any direct relevance to being hacked, in almost all cases you ran an executable that you should not have

if you've already wiped things, you should be in decent shape, although running 'rootkit revealer' might not be a bad idea, there are subreddits that will help you go through the results if you can't handle that yourself

 

No man what I mean is that like I fucked up in the settings to where the VPN was not working at the time and my regular secured settings as in whatever chrome/ Firefox came w there standard browser I accidentally disengaged or change to one of those making it even less secure or something of the sort what research I have done suggests that it is likely possible and I’m just wondering what’s the best way to go about this but I do appreciate your advice brother it’s just been a headache but I’m gonna check reddit thanks brother

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2024

Reinstall Windows and avoid dubious websites. Only install things from trustworthy websites like the sister site.
Change your password and use secure passwords. Use the Firefox Internet browser!

 

Last edited: Nov 4, 2024

Okay, let's get some things straight:

1- a VPN will not shield you from anything. All a VPN is really useful for is hiding your traffic from your ISP, but even that can be contested since there are many ways of tracking a user. Usually it's effective for that reason because you're not a wanted criminal, so the government has no incentive to waste resources getting past your VPN. It will not prevent you from getting hacked or anything security-wise.

2- you most likely had a RAT in your computer, probably from downloading something dodgy that you didn't realize was a virus. This most likely happened during the timeframe you noticed you got hacked, so something must have happened during that window of time. Other than, you had terrible luck and the infection happened some time prior and the RAT happened to activate at a confusing time, but even though that's possible, I think you got the infection moments before you noticed the hack.

3- if you have been following "advice" from this forum, such as getting rid of your firewall and antivirus for some imaginary performance gain, that is also part of the reason this happened. Good call on plugging off the internet, though, I always advise people to turn off their router and pull the ethernet cable from the PC the moment you notice an infection. That can be life or death for your PC and others in the same network.

 

Now that I think about it The only other site I went to was f.......repack Yeah I know for sure I did not get it from the sister side and I have been paranoid about going anywhere else and never had the need to. Yeah this is a shit learning experience but will not be forgotten oh and my dumbass had my cell at the time hooked up to Bluetooth... definitely feel like a tool I keep replaying the scene from Wayne’s world in my head “ I’m not worthy”

 

Yeah my only worries since I wiped everything is the Wi-Fi router definitely gonna change the info to that as well shortly password username

 

This happens to every user at least 1-3 times, please just feel better and you're definitely not an idiot, it happens to everyone. You learn from mistakes. You'll be smarter next time.

 

So that's it, you probably went to one of the many fake fitgirl sites. Case closed?

 

No it’s nothing as far as listening to people talk about snake oil I just was swapping one browser for the other because I wasn’t a fan of edge and used to use Firefox couple years ago I know that one is not going to truly be a lot over the other to make a big difference it’s just an interface thing And ignorance but thanks man like I said I really appreciate any advice you guys give me

 

Write down the passwords on a piece of paper - in case of emergency, maybe think about a backup. It's best to have different passwords for everything. You should always be prepared for being hacked or for the PC to remain black or frozen when booting up. Then you're glad to have a full backup of the entire C./ hard drive on a second hard drive, which you can restore with an emergency CD-ROM. I once had a polyphonic virus that ate the files... And twice the PC froze BKA Trojans... I restored the PC 3 times thanks to the backup.

 

Yeah the more I think about it that’s how it went down I’m sure I got rock Smith for my nephew couple months ago no problems I even played it went back and downloaded two games one which only downloaded half and the other one I played for a few minutes and deleted because it had shitty control port i really appreciate you guys helping me fill in the blanks because I was definitely caught off guard

 

This is why we have a laptop for internet & one not for the internet! if you produce music!! otherwise you risk losing the lot without back up

 

Damn dude that just sounds Hella brutal but I do appreciate the kind words man and I feel a little better knowing that this kind of shit does happen to the majority I will most definitely take your advice and actually the day of started writing new info down w pen and paper

 

And wouldn’t you know I have a laptop and a PC a slow laptop but none the less... I will say that in the convenience of using amp Sims I have not been giving my Engl fireball 25 enough love so the last few days I’ve been playing the hell out of that..

 

if you go offline, you can probably fix any Windows fuckery with Hiren Boot,
what kind of advice you seek?
don't use shady warez places? don't ignore need for backups? don't trust strangers on the internet? don't pay for any too good deals?

VPN is just a tunnel, it doesn't guarantee anything and frankly I'd only use it to access home from outside, and only specific services allowed through firewall

 

yes a paper notebook for your computer is a must. I have one for my network in the basement, with all the settings, passwords etc (for the routers - not all my other passwords) - its handy when you work on something only once a year or even every couple years..

learn to run sysinternals processexplorer in your startup sequence so its always there if you need to see whats eating cpu cycles and to kill processes instantly. Also run TCPview, so you can see who's connecting to your computer when you need to.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

download the whole package its free.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

don't download or use the "LIVE" version,its a web service, you want to be able to run these programs irregardless of your internet connection being active. Download the standalone versions, use the 64bit if you've got a 64bit processor..

 

I'm sorry it happened to you, I got nothing useful to say or any relevant advice about it. Shit happens. Similar stuff has had happened to me since the Khaled Mardam Bey's mIRC file sharing era and I learn absolutely nothing from it. I mean, the method changes everytime, you can only pray they are not targeting you. All sort of protection helps, but if you got their attention after you accidentally opened the back door for them by running wrong executable, there's nothing much you or any super techy computer wizard can do about it at that time. Your decision to wipe out everything is the right one and I hope it didn't cost you too much resources to get back to your comfortable setups. Stay strong.

 

I'm sorry that you became a victim of an attack. This happens to many people. Probably malware but it does not have to be 100% sure, sometimes it can be 0day and then nothing will help.
I once had my gmail account hacked despite multi-factor authentication. I found out about it when, after a few weeks, I managed to regain access after Twitter, which had become a zombie account that automatically feeds further content of extremists from the Middle East.

If I were you:
- I would restore the router to factory settings and update the firmware.
- format harddrive, scan for rootkits.
- after the reinstallation carefully configured a firewall such as Malwarebytes Firewall Control or TinyWall - you can set it not to make outgoing connections without confirmation. This way you have control over what connects to the network and with what IP
- Check out Sandboxie Plus or Windows Sandbox: to be sure, download and unzip/run "programs" in the sandbox. Whatever junk is in the exe/rar will stay in the sandbox.