this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
44 points (81.4% liked)

Privacy

31872 readers
376 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Suddenly a website popped up on chrome tried to close it & there was a pop-up closed it again; then my firefox browser was refreshed & a NEW "hibro.txt" file was created on the desktop. Opened the txt file and they were addressing me & talking about how good of a gamer I am...

SO can you please explain HOW WAS the .txt file created by the hacker & HOW THE HELL did they know I'm a player of xyz game?? COULD THEY HAVE ACCESS of my files, folders and family pictures too? PLEASE HELP and KINDLY CLARIFY MY DOUBTS!

all 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Fazoo@lemmy.ml 137 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Real answer? Shut your PC down, pull the hard drive, and use a dock to pull your personal data to another PC. Only files you are 100% certain are clean. No apps or scripts.

Then wipe the machine without using an internet connection. Change all your passwords and reconfigure your home network. Then reflect on what you did in regards to risky online behavior and be more proactive in protecting your privacy and data.

If real, how they did it is irrelevant if you don't have forensic know-how. You need to now be proactive in preventing any further interference. If they can create a file on your desktop, they have access to the system and what is on it.

[–] BlovedMadman@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How is not important at this stage, you need to deal with the threat, its possible they have access to your whole PC, files, network, everything (they may have made copies too)

Either you clicked on something or installed something spurious. Or they are on your network and they have access to your PCs directory. - the weakest link in any network are the users, think about what happened, what could have caused it and that's your solution for it to not happen again (what did you install, what did you click on? etc...)

Change all WiFi passwords (disable that shitty easy connect WPS thing). disconnect your PC from any network, back up important files format all drives, reinstall OS.

[–] Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tbh the advice provided is already pretty accurate, as to how; there's a non zero chance that a friend may have sent you a RAT (remote admin tool/remote access Trojan), these are basically the best back door to someone's computer you can have, normally you want to have physical access to someone's computer to install them or have a user run it with elevated privileges, (there are other ways as well, such as spoofing a jpg, other methods of remote code execution). These tools will allow you to access there computer, files, keylog, steal passwords, send popups, open and close the disk tray plus basically anything else you could do with access to the computer.

Basically follow other people's advice in regards to undoing this.

[–] darq@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was going to say, this sounds more like a prank from a friend who had access to the machine, than an actual hack. A malicious hacker isn't going to drop a "hibro.txt" on your desktop to mess with you. They aren't going to be interactively watching your session at all. They're going to silently keylog you for financial or identity details, or they're going to install ransomware.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but better safe than sorry.

[–] darq@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Definitely! I wouldn't mess around with it either.

[–] ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Shut down the computer and disconnect it from the internet, if you haven't already done so.

With another computer (or your phone) download Spybot (i think it's still considered one of the best free tools out there) and move it to your pc, let it run its scan, and check the results.

Oh, and like @Fazoo@lemmy.ml stated, this isn't foolproof, so if you want to be really sure, then follow their advice instead.

Can't say how this "hacker" got you with the provided information, but if he can put a file on your desktop, then he can likely see your files too. It wouldn't happen to be one of your friends pulling a fast one on you?

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Sounds like malware games to me. Probably a windows user, probably disabled Defender.

[–] iliketrains@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

One of the reasons why you want to keep a live-bootable operating system within one of your flashdrives or optical discs.

You probably need another device to securely boot up a live OS to recover your data. Don't use Windows, because it might still be vulnerable to autoplay scripts when mounting your infected OS partition and I assume your infected OS is Windows, so the malwares are going to be compatible and unless you know what you're doing, you probably don't want to take that chance.

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

As to how, did you have your Chrome up to date?

[–] archy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Which OS did you use? Linux or MacOS?

[–] Sebbe@lemmy.sebbem.se 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] archy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago
[–] TechieDamien@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] archy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Nice one, a hacker hacked TempleOS