whats happening? please help!

[Guest]

ok--apparently someone in my house has been logged in to my computer under
the administrator account. i just found out how bad that is-so i looked
through my computer to make sure it was ok and found out it was not. I am
behind firewalls and other security settings by the way. anyhow-- i went to
my performance logs and there is nothing-event logs-nothing--temp internet
files nothing. so, i went to the settings for them and made sure they were
all enabled-and they were. so over the last couple days i have watched them
and still nothing. so i dont remember what it was i went into but i viewed
all the applied drivers-the running systems bla bla bla--and found out that
something is going in and changing all my performance logs-histories account
user controls security settings the norton-and such. then i noticed alot of
my file names were being changed in another viewer option...whats happening?
and what is in my computer? how do i stop it and what is the outcome of it
being in there? please help!!!! im not that computer savvy and i cant isolate
what it is. thankyou in advance if u can help me.

 

[Mike Fields]

ok--apparently someone in my house has been logged in to my computer under
the administrator account. i just found out how bad that is-so i looked
through my computer to make sure it was ok and found out it was not. I am
behind firewalls and other security settings by the way. anyhow-- i went to
my performance logs and there is nothing-event logs-nothing--temp internet
files nothing. so, i went to the settings for them and made sure they were
all enabled-and they were. so over the last couple days i have watched them
and still nothing. so i dont remember what it was i went into but i viewed
all the applied drivers-the running systems bla bla bla--and found out that
something is going in and changing all my performance logs-histories account
user controls security settings the norton-and such. then i noticed alot of
my file names were being changed in another viewer option...whats happening?
and what is in my computer? how do i stop it and what is the outcome of it
being in there? please help!!!! im not that computer savvy and i cant isolate
what it is. thankyou in advance if u can help me.

Start with a good antivirus scan, ad-aware and spybot run from safe mode
to see what it finds. Make sure you run from safe mode since some
things
can hide in the normal mode. If the machine is clean and you really
believe
someone else is logging in, CHANGE THE PASSWORDS for all the
accounts on the machine. This includes the administrator account.
Disconnect it from the network to make sure they are not getting in that
way and see if things still get changed.

mikey

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Is there anyone in your house that accesses your computer? If so I would
suggest that you confront them first to see what is going on. Then be sure
that all the administrator accounts have hard to guess passwords and change
them all now. You can use the command net localgroup administrators to see
what users are also local administrators. For XP Home you will need to boot
into Safe Mode to logon as the built in administrator account to give it a
password or try the command net user administrator newpassword and verify
that the account does then require that password in Safe Mode. Understand
that any user that can get full physical access to your computer can do
whatever he wants to it with the possible exception of accessing encrypted
files and can continue to "own" the computer no matter what you do now
unless you reinstall the operating system to a pristine state and physically
secure the computer. --- Steve